


You'll Never Know, Dear

by OrdinaryBird



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, M/M, Memory, Mild Triggers, some blood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-03-24 23:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 26,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3787741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrdinaryBird/pseuds/OrdinaryBird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil and Carlos attend a family barbeque, 'cause of prophecy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prophecy

The envelope was grey, as was the paper inside. Cecil frowned at it while he chewed his toast.

“What’s up?”

He looked up from the paper. “We have to go to my sister’s today. Well, I do anyway. Wanna come with?”

“Sure.” Carlos smiled. Generally, Cecil smiled back, but not this time. “What’s the matter, Ceec?”

“Hm? Oh!” He crushed the paper in his hand and picked up the glass ashtray from the center of the kitchen table. He rolled his eyes while he flicked the lighter. “Prophecy.”

He caught a corner of the scrunched paper with the flame and they watched it curl and smoke in the ashtray. Cecil burned most of his mail. Carlos had stopped wondering why.

“I’ll make something. Give her a call and see what we should bring. We could have, like, a family barbeque!”

“Oh spire, a barbeque with _Steve_.” Cecil set his forefinger against his temple, thumb cocked, and mimicked a gunshot.

Carlos poked through the cabinets while Cecil was on the phone, his heart beating loud in his ears. This was it. This was the best chance he would get. They didn’t get to see Abby much. Maybe this prophecy was a sign!

“She says bring that mac and cheese you made for the firehouse potluck,” Cecil called from the living room. “Janice has been asking for it.”

“Gotcha.”

While he cooked, he rehearsed.

 

 

Carlos could not remember much of his family. His Tia had been sweet as anything and a champion baker, but what little else he could remember was not pleasant.

Not like this.

They sat on the back porch, which Janice had insisted they string with fairy lights, a desire Cecil encouraged after Steve attempted to talk her out of it for fear of what attention it could call to the house. Steve had grilled things and hugged Carlos like he belonged, called him “brother”. And Abby had let him in on a family ritual, one Carlos remembered seeing in movies but never, ever experienced first hand.

After they ate dinner, she emerged from the kitchen with cold cans in her arms, passing around beers and sodas. Cecil had positioned himself so he was facing Carlos, chin in hand, his back conveniently towards Steve.

“Hey Gersh,” Abby said, “what are you drinking? Coke or Coors?”

He turned with horror and frustration. “Abby, we are both adults and you do _not_ need to _ever_ call me that again.”

And that’s when it began. After all that came next, Carlos held to that moment, when Abby began the Embarrassing Family Stories, which she addressed to him as a newcomer, but one who belonged here, one who should know these things.

“When we were little,” she explained, “my dad was still around, and his name was Cecil too.”

“It was?” Cecil muttered with a frown.

“So when my mom called for Cecil he’d toddle in from wherever he was playing and stare at her until she realized why he was there. So then we started calling him by his middle name. After dad was gone, it kind of stuck.”

“So what happened to your dad?” Carlos asked, affecting a casual air to hide his joy at being included.

“Um--”

Abby and Cecil exchanged hasty glances.

“Things,” she said finally.

“Yeah.” Cecil gestured vaguely with his empty hand. “Stuff.”

“Anyway,” Abby went on, “of course it got shortened with time--”

Carlos felt a prod at his shoulder and turned to face Janice. She’d been giggly since dinner ended, probably because she got to stay at the table for the grown-up talk.

“Uncle Carlos,” she said, obviously watching his reaction to the title, “can you open this for me?”

He felt his cheeks flush and smiled down at the plastic tablecloth while he popped the cola can and handed it back.

“--and that’s when he pushed Earl out of the tree.”

Carlos didn’t mind missing the story. _Uncle Carlos! She thinks of me as her uncle!_

“He didn’t speak until he was like, four. He just sort of whined and stared at shadows in horror. You know. Normal kid stuff. And then he started talking, in full sentences, and he hasn’t shut up since.”

“Abby, I have stories on you, you know. First time she got drunk she made herself ridiculously sick. And then she was trying to pretend she wasn’t hungover at school the next day so she wouldn’t have to go for reeducation. Convinced the nurse she had Spanish flu and ended up getting the whole school district quarantined. Two weeks we slept in the cafeteria.”

“When I was pregnant with Janice,” Abby countered, “I didn’t even get to tell her biological father. _He heard it on the radio._ ”

“Well how was I supposed to know you hadn’t told him?” Cecil cried. “I was just excited to be an uncle, okay?”

“He skipped town before I even saw him again.” She paused thoughtfully and looked at Steve, who was smiling quietly at the end of the table. “Or maybe he’s in the abandoned mineshaft. Hmm. Whatever. Point is, Cecil has no filter.”

“Which is why we know he’s so happy with you,” Steve added. “You’ve been good for him, Carlos.” He slapped Cecil heartily on the shoulder.

Cecil rubbed his temples and hissed “Do _not_.”

“Anyway, it was hard having her on my own, but I wouldn’t trade what I have now for all the world. And I have Mister Bigmouth to thank for it.”

She smiled at Steve. He smiled back. Cecil made a face at the can in his hands.

Abby sighed. “Alright, I’m gonna start clearing up. You behave yourselves,” she said, narrowing her eyes at Cecil.

“Oh, let me help you!” Carlos said, jumping to his feet and getting tangled in the legs of his plastic chair.

“Oh no, no,” she said, waving him off, “please. You’re a guest.”

“I’ll help!” Cecil shouted, clearly looking for a way to get out of sitting with Steve without Abby as a buffer.

“No, I insist,” Carlos said. His heart was pounding again. This was it. This was his chance. He grabbed a couple of plates before anyone else could object and followed Abby into the kitchen.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have left them alone,” Abby mused, peering out the screen door. “I’m too young to be a widow.”

Carlos laughed nervously. “So, um, Abby. Y-you’re his only living relative, right?”

She paused at the sink, staring at the running water until it overflowed the pot. “Well--uh. That’s an interesting question.” She turned the sink off with a flourish and said brightly, “I’m certainly the closest! Only one in city limits!”

Cecil and Abby made the same face when they were deflecting, Carlos noticed. “I have a question. Well, a couple of them, actually.”

“Shoot.”

“First of all, what’s all this prophecy stuff?”

“Oh, that?” She waved a hand dismissively and scraped bits of macaroni and chicken bones off a plate. “Nothing, really. He just takes after mom. This stuff used to happen a lot when we were kids. He likes to be nearby when something’s gonna happen though, we have the same blood type.”

“Oh, of course,” Carlos said, although he barely understood.

“Nothing major’s happened in a while. Not since he, uh, settled in to his position. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“Okay.”

“You said you had another question?”

“Well, yes. I was thinking--”

There was a strangled cry from outside.

“Aw hell.” Abby stomped to the door and Carlos followed close behind.

“Steve, there is a _child present!_ ” Cecil had his hands securely over Janice’s ears. “Don’t you dare talk that way in front of my niece!”

“I was only saying--”

“ _You will say nothing, Steve Carlsberg!_ " Cecil roared.

“Cecil! Stop it!” Abby’s expression could only be described as maternal rage.

“You didn’t hear him, Abby, you didn’t hear the _dangerous lies--_ ”

“I don’t care. Sit your ass _down_ and both of you stop it.” She turned to Janice, who had pushed away from the table and was regarding her uncle and stepfather with concern, and sweetened her voice. “Baby, could you bring in the empty cans and rinse them for recycling?”

_Shit shit shit!_ Janice was at the sink and he needed to talk to Abby alone.

Abby sighed deeply and tossed the dishcloth she was holding on the counter. “You were saying?”

Carlos jerked his head towards the doorway to the living room.

It was a comfortable room, very lived in, with that old wood paneling and a worn path on the carpet from the kitchen to the hallway. Abby stood in the center of the room in front of an aging recliner and said, “Well?”

“So, uh, listen. I was wondering--” Suddenly everything he’d rehearsed was gone, his mind was blank, not three hours ago he’d figured out exactly what to say and now he had nothing. “Um. I was wondering. How you would feel if I--if I...asked Cecil...to, um.” He cleared his throat. His hands were shaking. “To.”

“Carlos.” she said. There was a thump outside, which she pointedly ignored. “You’re planning to propose.”

Carlos nodded slowly, avoiding eye contact. “Yes.”

“And you’re asking my permission?”

“Well. Yes.”

“Carlos this is the _cutest thing_ and it is _about time_ you make an honest man out of him!” She squealed softly and rushed forward, hugging him tightly around the shoulders.

“Please, please don’t tell him--”

“Of course I won’t. Oh, this is just perfect! I’m so excited--”

The screen door banged open. Janice made a sound from the kitchen and dropped something. “Uncle Cecil--!”  
He was looking pale as he came through the doorway, his pupils contracted, snapping his fingers by his right ear.

“You look like death,” Abby said, then clapped a hand over her mouth like she’d misspoken.

“I feel...poorly,” Cecil mumbled. “I think _Steve_ must have undercooked the chicken.” He trudged forward, not seeming to notice that until seconds ago his sister was clutching his boyfriend in glee.

“You need any help?” Carlos asked.

There was no response as he moved toward the bathroom in a daze.

“Don’t you lock that door!” Abby shouted after him.

“Is he okay?” Janice rolled into the living room, her eyes wide and serious.

“He’ll be fine, sweetheart, you just go to your room and shut the door, okay?”

“Is this the prophecy thing? What do we do?”

“Probaby. But don’t worry, he had the presence of mind to blame Steve so it’s probably not that--”  
There was a tremendous sound from the bathroom, like an airplane door opening midflight, like amplified thunder, and a gust of cold air through the house.

“Oh no no _Steve_!” She didn’t turn when the door banged open. “Get the little stones and the fresh blade--wooden handle, not the steel. Quickly!” She strode across the living room in two big steps and fought to open the door. It was stuck fast.

“Wait!” Carlos felt the hollow wooden door and rammed it with his shoulder, once, twice, calling out what may have been a name, or may have just been anguish given voice, sounds without meaning.

The wood around the knob cracked and broken the vacuum in the little room. Abby shoved him roughly out of the way and pulled open the door.

Carlos didn’t really have a chance to process what came next. There was too much noise, too much movement, his head felt light and his body was heavy. Steve moving past him in a blur, saying “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I tried to warn him but he wouldn’t listen--” and the crease between Abby’s eyebrows as she dug through the small black bag, mumbling to the small bloodstones and setting them carefully around Cecil who was-- _no no no_ \--and Janice crying from her bedroom, the scream-sobs of a terrified child--

“ _Carlos, focus!_ ” Abby snapped. Carlos’ dizzy mind crashed back into his body and he more fell than knelt by Cecil’s head. “Hold his neck straight, keep his head off the floor. Steve, go sit with Janice.”  
Her movements were swift and precise; she had clearly done this before. Carlos set Cecil’s still, cold head on his knees and stroked his temples.

Abby worked. She’d sketched out a small circle in stones around the prone body, then raised the small, wooden-handled knife to her left arm. Carlos looked down at Cecil’s face, but that was as unsettling as what he was trying to avoid seeing. When he looked up she was whispering, carefully trailing blood down her wrist and off her fingertip, two small dots on the stones by his feet, two on those near his hands, one on the spare stone she placed on his navel. Three drops on each of the stones around his head.

“Towel!” She snapped, and Carlos tossed one towards her. She wrapped her forearm tightly and climbed over Cecil’s still body, careful to keep her bare feet outside of the circle. “I’m calling an ambulance. Talk to him. Sing. Anything. Just keep making sounds. Give him something to follow back!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Want to know the middle bit of the Earl story? He also used to use the family nicknames based on "Gershwin", until one day he called him "Gershwinator" and got himself shoved out of a tree. You're welcome. 
> 
> And look at this [wonderful little comic](http://mr-reblogbutton.tumblr.com/post/120976193012/happy-birthday-to-generalcupcakery-the-bae-of-baes) of the Earl Story by the splendid mr-reblogbutton, which was a most excellent birthday present.


	2. He's Up

They still didn’t know what happened. 

Night Vale General was a last resort for physical injuries, something Abby was reminded of when they insisted on stitching the wound on her arm, then spent an hour searching for a doctor who could actually do it. They specialized in spiritual damage and the side effects of reeducation. So she hadn’t been lying to Carlos when she said Cecil was in the best possible hands. 

But there were so many things they didn’t know.

Had the cover come off the mirror on its own, or had he pulled it down? She’d never thought to worry about that. Cecil came over, she covered the bathroom mirror. He left and she took the cover off. 

If he had taken it off himself, why? And what did he see?

Where had he gone?

She’d been aware, since their mother began drifting away in earnest, that there was something dangerous about mirrors, and that sometimes Cecil would get pulled away, pulled back into his own head. She’d learned how to bring him back from the family Bloodstone Ritual manuals. She never learned where he went, or what happened there.

The doctors said she and Carlos had done good work stabilizing him, but that they were having some trouble. And here they’d looked a little embarrassed, eyeing each other nervously, and the one that was not tall said _There’s been some damage. I mean, this guy has been reeducated a_ lot _. What does he--_

And the one that was not short elbowed him in the ribs and said _What my colleague is trying to say is, there might have been a few connections we were relying on that had been severed at some point. We may or may not be having some trouble pulling him out._

_So the City Council caused_ brain damage _and he might not--he might_ Carlos had stammered.

_Well, let’s not be too dramatic,_ the one that was not short said, making placating hand gestures.

_But really,_ the one that was not tall went on, _that is a lot of reeducation. I mean, jeez._

And that was the point where the mild-mannered, polite, gentle scientist had attempted to slug the doctor that was not short and was escorted from the hospital.

And now she waited. 

There was still so much she didn’t know.

Such as: when was he going to wake up?

She was sitting in the cafeteria, watching steam curl from a cup of burned coffee, when they called. Steve stammered, “Uh, hi, Abby, is--is everything okay?”

“No,” she said plainly, and cursed under her breath when she heard Janice start crying again. He never remembered to tell her when she was on speakerphone. “No, no, sweetie, it’s okay, don’t worry. Your uncle will be just fine--he’s with the doctors now--”

She thought she was numb, at this point, but the exhausted, hitching sobs from the other end of the phone twisted her stomach anew. 

“Momma, I’m scared--” she said, and the knot twisted tighter because Janice hadn’t called her _momma_ since she was five, not even when she was sick or having a nightmare.

“Don’t be scared, baby, don’t you worry. You go to bed now, okay? Steve, make sure she gets all her meds.”

“Sure thing. I love you, okay?”

“Love you too. And I love you Janice.”

“Love--you--” she heard the small voice hiccup.

Of course, Janice was so attached to Cecil; before she’d met Steve, he watched her when Abby was working two jobs to keep the rent paid, took her to the studio and bounced her on his knee while he read the news and traffic. She’d come home to find then sprawled on the sofa, sound asleep, her snuggled up on his chest with her thumb in her mouth. 

 

Outside the bathroom door, she had hesitated, hearing Carlos’ breathless, out-of-tune voice. 

“The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping, I dr--ah, I--”

She heard him choke, clear his throat. “I dreamed I held you--” he cleared his throat again and whispered words she couldn’t make out.

“You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey.”

He was a trooper, she thought, in an oddly detached way. Could she do this, seeing Steve stretched cold and stiff across the floor, powerless to do anything but--

She shook her head fast as though to dislodge the thought. 

“You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you.” She could hear him trying to form the words around a mouth that wanted to stretch and twist with emotion that couldn’t fit itself into the confines of a sob. But after a moment’s pause, he carried on. 

“Please don’t take my sunshine away.”

And then he started again. Abby took a deep breath to steady herself before turning the corner. He was hunched over the still form on the floor, resting his forehead against Cecil’s. He may have been rocking slightly. She cleared her throat loudly so as not to startle him, but he didn’t seem to notice. 

“They’re sending some EMTs.”

Carlos nodded.

Abby turned away, tried to stay practical. “Do you want me to leave you alone or stay in here?” 

“Stay. I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t know what I’m looking for.” He laid a hand against Cecil’s cheek. “He’s still so cold.”

“He’ll warm up,” Abby said, more confidently than she felt. “He’ll come back around.”

“How’s your arm?”

“Fine.” She shrugged and moved the towel to see if it was still bleeding. “This ain’t my first rodeo.”

“They’re not going to let me go with him.” When she didn’t answer, he went on, anxiously, “I’m not family. We’re not legally tied in any way. They can stop me from seeing him.”

“They won’t.”

“They might.”

“Carlos, we grew up here. Everyone knows Cecil, and he’s talked about you enough on air that everyone knows you too. And anyway, about half the EMTs have moved through one of the scout troops, so they know Earl. They’ll let you go.”

Carlos shook his head. He didn’t look up, kept his eyes trained on Cecil’s slack face. It was clearly an effort to keep his voice steady. “You and Cecil, you belong here. I’m an outsider. I can’t rely on other people doing the decent thing. I never could.”

“Trust me. I’ll get your happy ass in that ambulance if I have to beat everyone but the driver with a bat.”

He said nothing.

 

She’d been mostly right; Carlos was there in the ambulance when the still face started to regain color, when he started, in barely perceptible ways, to seem ill and tired instead of mostly dead.

She pulled Cecil’s phone out of her purse and flicked through the contacts for Carlos.

The contact picture was precious. It was an obvious selfie, Cecil perched on Carlos’ back and they looked positively drunk with love. She didn’t have much of an emotional response to it. Her girl was safe, her brother was in good hands, and she was thoroughly wrung out now.

She thought about calling him. But what would she say? _Still waiting, I’m just in a different room now_?

She picked up her scorched coffee and started back toward Cecil’s room.

 

Monitors everywhere. They’d shaved hair from his temples to stick tabs that measured something going on in his head. Things beeped and chirped and the room smelled like rubbing alcohol and toast.

Someone had placed a tray with a turkey sandwich and a fruit cup next to the seemingly-sleeping body.

He’d started breathing normally in the ambulance. Carlos had held his hand and cooed encouraging things in his ear with little meaning (“yes sweetheart, there you go, let’s hear that honey voice, come on”). His skin temperature was almost normal by now, but he still felt cold to her. 

After a moment of thought she picked up half of the sandwich. It wasn’t like he was going to eat it, and at least it would give her something to do. 

The machines hummed and beep, and Abby chewed her way patiently through the dry sandwich and the cup of peaches. She was trying to get the foil off the plastic cup of orange juice when the door opened.

“Oh. Miss Palmer.”

“It is _Mrs. Carlsberg_ ,” she said, just as she had countless times since the wedding, after which Cecil conveniently forgot her legal name change when he mentioned her on air. She already disliked the doctors, and didn’t appreciate their surprise that she was in the room. “Any change?”

“Well, we’ve run some tests,” the one that was not short began slowly.

“But we still haven’t got much of an idea of what’s happened,” the one that was not tall added. “This is a doozy, let me tell you.”

Abby sipped the juice, glaring at them over the top of the plastic cup. “And what are you going to do with this doozy?”

“Well, we have something here--” the doctor that was not tall pulled a small glass vial from the pocket of his lab coat-- “that might, kind of, do something.”

“ _Kind of_.”

“Yes.” The one that was not tall seemed to intentionally ignore the tone of her comment. “Miss--Mrs. Carlsberg. If you’d give us the room, please.”

"What is that?"

"If you please," the one that was not short said, "We'd prefer not to involve security again."

She kept her eyes on them as she left the room, throwing out the half-empty orange juice container with a loud thump. They shut the door after her.

She sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair and waited. By virtue of where the chairs were, she couldn’t see into the room, and perhaps that would be best. 

She could, however, hear things, such as three loud thumbs that came shortly after she left, and the shout of distress. She wrung her hands in her lap.

From inside the room she heard Cecil's voice shout, “Bernard! Abby!"

And then, in a cacophony of clatters and shrill beeping, “ _Ma!_ ”

The words had hardly registered before she was on her feet, back in the room. “What are you doing?!”

“Ah! Mrs. Carlsberg!” The man who was not short sounded chirpy and bright, as though he were not attempting to unsuccessfully restrain her flailing brother. “It worked!”

 

**He's up**

Abby had a second, while the doctors shined flashlights into Cecil’s eyes and peered down his throat, to send Carlos that much.

She tried to swallow her uncertainty. Why the hell would he call for Bernard? Last she’d heard, Cecil didn’t even remember he’d existed. And their mother hadn’t been around for over a decade. 

He was confused; he was disoriented; he had spent hours deep in some mental shadows and no one could be sure what they held. She tried to be optimistic, to ignore the fiddly details.

He answered basic questions just fine, mostly; his full name, his address, his job. When asked for his date of birth, he simply stared down the doctors until the one that was not tall cleared his throat loudly and tried a different question. Finally, they retreated into the hallway to discuss the situation.

“My head is pounding. You think I’m allowed to have water?”

As she poured some from a plastic pitcher into a plastic cup, she said, “I ate your lunch.”

“You would.” He wrinkled his nose and then glanced around the room. “How long have I been here?”

“A few hours. Do you remember--”

“Hel _lo_ ,” he said under his breath. She followed his line of sight to the windows beside the door. “Who is that hottie in the hallway?”

The blinds were open, and she could see Carlos striding towards the doctors rapidly, his face like a storm cloud, his lab coat billowing behind him in a regal fashion. “You mean...Carlos?”

“Carlos?” He glanced to her then back at the door, biting his lip and shifting his posture. “Carlos. Is he a doctor? Ohmygod, is he _my_ doctor?”

“Honey, no. That’s _Carlos_.”

“Good, no conflict of interest. Because I would climb him like a mountain.”

Abby noticed a prickly feeling start in the scalp on the back of her head and creep forward. Cecil didn’t believe in mountains. Well, no one did, she corrected hastily, but while she and Janice would just show up every so often and say the words, Cecil was devout. Even if he saw a mountain, he would--

_why didn’t he recognize Carlos?_


	3. I Was Mistaken

“Full name?”

“Ugh, you know all this already,” Cecil groaned, rolling his eyes. 

“Date of birth?”

“Oh my god.” He crossed his arms and looked at the ceiling. Couldn’t they see he was fine? That he needed to get home? As it was he’d really only have time to change before running out to the station anyway.

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

“I’m not answering these stupid questions.”

“ _How many?_ ”

“Four,” he spat. “You know, I’d be much more agreeable if you let the hot doctor ask the questions.” He might as well try to get something out of this.

“How many siblings do you have?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake. _Two_. What is even the point of this?”

The doctor who was not short locked eyes with the one that was not tall. They seemed concerned about something. 

“What if we told you that--” he looked at his partner again before continuing-- “that all your siblings were here?”

“I’d be shocked Bernard bothered to show up. He never liked me.” 

“Ohh- _kay_ ”, the one that was not tall said. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“A blinding headache. Like, angered-the-brownstone-spire headache. I couldn’t hear out of my left ear. I was at my sister’s place and I went into the bathroom to put some cold water on my face, but it was so dark in there and I couldn’t find the light. And then I woke up here.”

“What were you doing at your sister’s?”

“Do I need a reason?” He was being needlessly difficult, he knew, but he was frustrated and someone else was going to be frustrated along with him, damnit.

“Please. We need to reconstruct what happened.”

“I was supposed to babysit Ja--” He stopped suddenly. “Abby! Where’s Janice?”

“She’s at home with Steve, she’s fine.”

“ _Who the hell is Steve?_ ”

She frowned at him, eyes narrowed. 

“Well, never mind that now,” the not-tall doctor started. “What--”

“No, I want to know who you left my niece with!”

She stared at him, then shook her head, still frowning. “You know--I can't--” She strutted outside, radiating anger and confusion.

The two doctors were staring at him, clearly trying to keep their faces blank but not quite succeeding. 

“What? I know she’s not actually my kid. Can you blame me for being protective though?”

“That’s not--” the not-short doctor began, but his colleague cut him off. 

“Mr. Palmer, how old is your niece?”

“What the hell kind of questions _are_ these?”

“Just humor us, Mr. Palmer?”

He huffed. This was ridiculous. How many questions did it take to establish his grip on reality? “Thirteen months.”

They looked at each other, then back at him. “You’re sure about that?” said the one that was not short.

“Unless I’ve been here longer than a few hours, yeah.”

They looked at each other again. “Will you excuse us?” 

 

Cecil sipped water and counted ceiling tiles. There wasn’t much else to do, especially since he’d already counted the floor tiles. Abby still hadn’t come back, and neither had the doctors. 

A nurse--a tall, broad fellow with a nice haircut and a square jaw--came in and shined a flashlight into his eyes and took his temperature. He wrapped his mouth flirtatiously around the thermometer with a look of exaggerated innocence. The nurse looked away and coughed gently. 

“They’re keeping you overnight, at least,” he’d said, frowning at the thermometer. “Make yourself comfortable.”

“Oh good,” he grumbled. “If you see my sister, can you ask her to call Station Management? I have no idea how many sick days I have.”

“Sure thing.” The nurse tipped him a wink.

“Thanks ever so.”

But now he was alone again. He couldn’t sleep--every time he closed his eyes he felt countless hands on him, pulling him downward, and a strange hiss in his ears. There wasn’t much else to do. So he counted ceiling tiles.

After a while, someone brought him dinner, which he poked at half-heartedly. His stomach was queasy and his head ached. He drank more water. 

“You have to eat, Cecil.”

He looked up and smiled winningly. It was that cute nurse again. “Not to offend, but this isn’t exactly…”

“Edible?”

He laughed. “I mean I’m sure it’s technically food. But I’m not feeling well as it is.”

The nurse laughed too. “Alright, you get out of this one. But you have to eat the next one. Deal?”

“Cross my heart.”

“Want to take a walk? I mean, it’s not optional, I’ve been told to take you on a walk outside. But I don’t like just, you know, ordering people around.”

Cecil bit back the flirty response and swung his legs off the bed. “Okay. Let’s go.”

There was a small garden full of cacti and assorted succulents. They paced the path slowly, Cecil peering coyly at the fellow beside him. This hospital was awash in eye-candy, it seemed.

“Mind if I--?” The nurse pulled out a pack of cigarettes. 

“Got a spare?”

“Only if you don’t tell,” the nurse whispered. 

Cecil giggled. They selected a bench and sat. “So what’s the story? Why am I having strengthening walks in the garden with brown-eyed, handsome men?”

“Well--” the nurse paused for a moment, studying the ember on the end of his smoke. “Honestly, I’m supposed to observe your behavior. Report back.”

“Oh! A traitor!” Cecil stuck out his tongue. “And you’re going to tell them I am roguishly inappropriate in my blue hospital jammies and slipper socks?” He stuck his foot out, toe pointed.

The nurse laughed. “Something like that.”

“Well just you wait. Soon I’ll be back in civvies and you’ll be utterly charmed. _Utterly_.” He felt brazen and giddy. Perhaps he was coming on too strong. But it didn’t matter, it was just a bit of fun, right? “So what’s your name?” When he didn’t answer, Cecil added, “if you don’t tell me I’ll just call you Mr. Spy Nurse until you do.”

The man sighed out a cloud of smoke. “Ryan.”

Cecil rubbed his palm against his forehead. He felt a little lightheaded. The nicotine was hitting him harder than he had expected. Maybe he was still a little sick. “Ryan. Well, Ryan, are you going to interrogate me? Like the doctors did?”

“No. Just watch.”

Cecil spread his arms across the back of the bench and tilted his head. “I am an open book, Ryan. Watch away.”

“Thank you for your cooperation, Cecil, I--” He stopped abruptly, staring, almost fearful.

Cecil huffed and looked away. That always seemed to happen and he had had _enough_ of it. "Oh, what, did you find what you were looking for?"

“N-no. Don’t worry about it. Trick of the light.”

 

By the time they made it back to the room, Abby was in the chair by the bed. She had that maternal look on her face, the one she’d starting affecting when their mother--

When she--

Whatever. He let Nurse Ryan assist him back into bed and kept his eyes on him as he left. “Did you know,” he said, “that the hospital is sending spies to try and figure out what’s happened?”

“You smell like smoke.”

“Sexy, sexy spies.” He ignored her comment. Why the contempt in her voice? Sure, she was protective and bossy, but she gave up hassling him about his vices when he turned eighteen. 

"You haven't smoked in _years_."

He blinked at her. "How long have I been here?"

She rubbed her eyes. “Whatever. Cecil, we need to talk.”

“Okay,” he said cautiously, trying to sound like he wasn’t bothered by her tone. “What’s up?”

“Something’s--something’s happened.”

“Yes. We all know this. Do we know what’s happened yet? Oh--wait, did you call Station Management?”

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Yes. Station Management knows you’re--not well.”

“Okay. I’m not looking to lose my job over this.”

“Anyway--Cecil, I don’t know why, but I think--” she stopped. She was staring out the open door.

Cecil followed her gaze. Oh, and there was that handsome doctor. Watching him. Smiling, carefully. He waved.

Cecil grinned and waved back. _Maybe he’s watching me too._ This was the luckiest hospital stay _ever_.

“Hang on--I’ll be back--” Abby crossed the room in three steps placed her hands gingerly on the man’s shoulders.

Carlos. That was his name, she said, and apparently she knew him rather well, based on the body language. He was looking over her shoulder, eyes wide, face blank. She placed a hand on his chest. He stared at her mouth while she talked, like he couldn’t understand what she was saying. Was he reading lips? Hmm. No, he just looked away, but she was still talking. He was shaking his head fast.

Carlos--what a handsome man, that Carlos--raked his fingers through his gently greying hair and looked at the floor. Abby patted his shoulder awkwardly and started back into the room.

“You can come too,” Cecil called out the door, when the man did not follow her. “Plenty of room for you.” He smiled again.

The man stood in the doorway. He opened his mouth and it twisted, and then he pressed a fist against his lips. He stared at Cecil’s face.

He turned and walked away, hand over his mouth, looking at the floor.

“Oh no,” Cecil mumbled, his stomach sinking, “he’s straight. He’s straight and I just made this super weird. _Shit!_ ” He looked at Abby, whose face was--what? He couldn’t quite make out her expression. Something like disbelief. “Look, you clearly know him, can you tell him I’m sorry? I didn’t mean anything, you know, awkward there.”

She still didn’t say anything.

“God, I always do that. My mouth just gets away with me.” He crossed his arms over his chest. _Stupid, stupid!_

“Cecil,” she said gently.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean--I’m sorry.” He looked away. “I’m sorry.”

“Honey, that’s not--don’t worry about that now.” She sat on the edge of the bed. She never called him _honey_ , hadn’t in years, not since their mother--

“Where is Bernie?” Cecil said suddenly. He did not want to hear what she had to say. “I know we don’t get along but has he been around at all?”

“Cecil, Bernard is--”

“Where? Does he even know--”

“He’s _gone_ , Cecil.” She sighed heavily. “We need to talk.”

 

He counted ceiling tiles. The lights were off. Things beeped and hooted gently in the dark room. Shadows from the hallway crossed his ceiling, nurses and orderlies and doctors walking back and forth. He felt sick.

Abby had gone home. She said she’d be back in the morning. He wasn’t sure he wanted her to come back. He wasn’t sure he wanted there to be morning.

Nothing she had said made sense. The doctors brought in calendars, diagrams, a copy of the Ritual Manual, same edition he grew up with. And still none of it made sense.

He had apparently built a whole life, and then lost it--

There was so much--there was too much--barely aware of his actions, his feet kicked, he grunted and fought something he couldn’t see. He needed to stay awake. He needed to go home. He needed to scream, or for someone to help him make sense of _this thing_ \--

Whatever it was, it hurt. It was tight and heavy in his chest, a marked absence; these things that were missing had left a hole sucking everything in. _Yes, I live alone. I don’t have any pets. No, I’ve never travelled out of the country, I don’t even have travel clearance._

_No, I do not have a boyfriend._

_I work for the radio station. I got my show after my internship ended._

_I am right-handed._

And this was apparently _all wrong_ and with each answer Abby seemed more and more upset until finally she left the room and she was making the same face as that man, Carlos, and he didn’t know how to interpret the expression so he called it _disappointment_ and _anger_ and _hurt_ , because that’s what he was, what he caused, and he was doing it again and he never meant to.

A nurse--older, female, eyes kind and a little empty--put something in his IV. Or maybe he dreamed that, because she looked so much like his mother and he hadn’t seen her face in five years. Maybe he dreamed her brushing tears off his cheek, thorough, businesslike, but not unkind.

He didn’t want to dream. He felt his eyes cross, his vision blur. He sang to himself to try and keep himself up. _When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken--_

\--and he slipped out of the room into a dull, heavy sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The former-smoker Cecil headcanon is [Valda's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/valda/pseuds/valda) which I ~~lifted from her bag when her head was turned~~ borrowed and will return in PRISTINE condition.


	4. Alone Again

The apartment was the same as when they’d left it--dishes from the macaroni and cheese in the sink ( _and to think I felt so happy when I made that_ ), the small pile of ashes in the glass dish, now cold. The rest of the mail was in a messy little pile on the table. 

He slept on the sofa. He wasn’t ready to spend a night alone in their bed. 

Carlos planned his morning around work. He got coffee on the way to the lab. He poked aggressively at things in petri dishes, growled “hmm” at many bubbling liquids, swore at the centrifuge and thumped it when it made strange noises. His team gave him a wide berth. News had gotten around, somehow, and no one turned on the radio at lunchtime. 

He considered sleeping in the lab. There was a neglected futon in the far corner, still unmade from the last time someone had climbed out of it. But they were looking at him so carefully that, at the end of the day, he had to go home, if only to escape the oppressive funk of their silence in favor of the oppressive funk of an empty apartment. 

He clenched his teeth while he washed the dishes, slamming things around and splashing water everywhere. He sat on the floor of the shower, letting the hot water hit his back, staring at nothing. He stayed there for quite a while. They rarely coshowered, so it felt like there were fewer ghosts there than in the rest of the apartment.

He spent the night on the sofa again, watching The Twilight Zone in a blurry haze. 

The next day it didn’t hurt quite so bad. Was he adjusting to the absence? That idea worried him, and he probed the numbness in his head like someone pokes a new bruise, waiting to see when the pain will start. 

 

He had left the hospital as quickly as he dared. The sterile smell felt like a metaphor for the beautiful, organic love that had been scrubbed out of Cecil, a most unscientific thought about an unquantifiable sting that settled into an ache in the car. He sat in the parking lot for a long time, resting his head against the hot leather of the steering wheel. 

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it. 

It went off again.

And again. 

When he checked it, his stomach leapt painfully. **Ceec: three missed calls**

He stared at the phone, noticing in a detached way that it was shaking slightly in his trembling hand.

_It’s not him, it can’t possibly be, it isn’t, why would he--?_

Then a new text, from an unknown number. 

**Its Abby. Come by tonight? We should discuss things. Earls coming but I can put him off if you don’t wanna deal w that.**

How could he do that? How could he sit at her kitchen table, look her and her husband in the eye, look at Cecil’s best friend and all the reminders of how normal life had been just twelve hours ago?

Then again, how else would he fill the time?

Abby served cups of coffee that they fiddled with, but no one drank. After his initial hello, Steve loudly declared that he and Janice had errands to run, and no one said goodbye when they left, but Carlos noticed Abby hug Janice for longer than was typical.

“Carlos, I just filled Earl in about--”

“Where is he?” Earl cut in abrupted, tapping his fingernails nervously against his mug. “Mentally.”

Abby looked away. “It’s difficult to say. You know why.”

Carlos wasn’t sure if they were talking some kind of code, some Night-Vale-native thing no one else understood, or if he just couldn’t focus on what they were saying.

“Right now they’re estimating, like, late twenties.”

This rang a bell. Earl had recently been stuck at a fixed point in his own timeline. Cecil was in the same situation? _Earl got out of it and has his adult life now, maybe he can stop all this, maybe he can get Cecil back--_

“Oh no,” Earl said softly. He’d gone pale and seemed to sweat slightly. “That’s-- _shit_ that is not good.”

“But you got back!” Carlos burst out suddenly. They didn't seem to get it. He backtracked to explain his logic. “You got back to the age you ought to be, just tell him how you did that and he’ll get it back, he’ll find his place again. You didn’t remember anything from the time that passed but maybe that was because you were nineteen for so long--it’s not that awful, _you can fix this!_ ”

It almost seemed like Earl hadn’t noticed him say anything. He picked at his lip nervously. “Abby, you know this is a really bad time, and if he’s stuck there for, like, a while--”

Abby nodded seriously.

“He was a fucking _trainwreck_ then.”

“But you can stop it!” Carlos cried. Why weren’t they listening??

Earl shook his head. “I can’t. I don’t...know, really, what happened to me. I just sort of snapped back one day, woke up with an adult life I couldn’t account for. I didn’t _do_ anything.”

“And Cecil’s situation is not as straightforward,” Abby said carefully, as though there was anything straightforward about Earl snapping suddenly into adulthood without even trying. “There is a _lot_ wrong with personal chronology in my family. And he’s been reeducated way more than, like, anyone else, so if his memory was ever linear it apparently--it isn’t anymore.”

“So what do we do?”

Earl shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know that we can do anything.”

Carlos stared at his mug. They talked around him, but he couldn't focus on it. Abby reached forward once, as though to put her hand on his, but changed her mind at the last second. 

When she saw him to the door, Abby offered him a hug that he returned stiffly. "I'm gonna offer the guest room to him for a while, until things settle."

 

And so he was alone. 

The next morning he felt like a gutted fish, holding a throw pillow against his chest because it had a faint hint of that distinctly Cecil smell, the opposite of the hospital reek he’d run away from two days prior. He thought about calling his father, for the first time in years. He thought about getting uproariously drunk and smashing glasses in the kitchen.

In the end he fell asleep.

 

He shot awake at the loud thump, still clutching the pillow, and there he was. For a moment everything was normal and right and good--

Cecil stood in the space between the kitchen and the living room, next to a suitcase he had apparently dropped. 

\--and then reality thundered back into the empty space in Carlos’ chest. 

“ _F--Fuck_ ,” Cecil stammered, “I am so sorry, I didn’t think--Abby said you worked, I just wanted to get a few things--”

He looked at Carlos like he was a stranger, and god that _hurt_ because he was so close and had never been farther away and this was the first time, the only time that Cecil did not love him, the first time he was not _my Carlos_ but _the man on the couch_.

“--I’ll come back later,” Cecil said. “Yours is the blue car, right? I’ll come back when you’re out.”

“No, no, it’s fine.” _It’s your home too,_ he did not say. “Just let me know if there’s anything you can’t find.”

“Thanks.” Cecil smiled nervously and crossed into the bedroom. 

Carlos stood in the living room, feeling conspicuous, and, having nothing else to do, tidied up the immediate area.

“Um, hey--” Cecil poked his head out of the door. “--dumb question. Which side of the closet is my stuff?”

“That’s--that’s tricky, actually. You’re mostly on the right, and a little more than halfway across the back, but your shoes are on the back of the bedroom door, not the closet door. And you have the right hand dresser, the one with the two little drawers on top.”

“Right. Thanks.”

_You do not need to follow him into the room. You do not need to see him look at your bed like it isn’t where he belongs._

But in a fit of self-torment, he shuffled quietly across the living room carpet and stood in the doorway. 

Cecil was holding a framed photograph--the two of them together in front of the Arby’s sign. From a previous anniversary. He squinted at it, as though trying to recognize one or both faces.

He noticed Carlos and dropped the picture on the bed like it had burned him. 

“Sorry.”

He picked it up gingerly and set it back on the nightstand. Silently, he pulled things from the closet and dresser, seemingly at random. The suitcase snapped shut affirmatively.

“Okay, so I’m gonna get out of here. Thanks again.”

“Sure.”

“Bye.”

What Carlos always said was _love you, see you soon!_ and that was _not_ appropriate right now. Instead, he said, “can you just...have a look at this real quick? You--” he swallowed. “Your name is on the lease and we’ve been putting this off.”

Cecil nodded with that same nervous little smile. “It looks so different. I almost forgot this is my place. Then again, we don’t know if I just lost a bunch of time or if I scrambled parallel universes or...whatever. So this may not actually be my place.”

_My place_. Why couldn’t Cecil have come by yesterday, when Carlos couldn’t feel anything?

Cecil thumbed through the document. “Did we--or you--did anyone read this?”

“Yeah. It’s just a change in the pet policy and a reminder about search and seizure laws.” 

“Okay. I’m gonna trust you on this one.” He smiled charmingly, but it was distant, guarded. 

Carlos handed him the magic marker--technically not a writing utensil--with which they signed formal documents. The signature was the same-- _C.G. Palmer_ in very formal script--but--

“Ceec, aren’t you left handed?”

The smile slipped off of Cecil’s face and he paled a bit in the cheeks. “Oh. Of course. Yes.” He threw the fine-tipped marker down without capping it. “I haven’t done a single fucking thing right this week. Why would I sign a legal document with the proper hand?! For the last four days it’s been _ooooh Ceeecil, why don’t you remember how much you hate my husband? Aren’t you left handed? Wait, you never had a brother! Hey, didn’t you quit smoking, like, forever ago?_ Apparently I have a cat. A _cat_.”

Carlos blinked at him.

“I have been a dog person for _literally_ my entire life.” He slapped the flat of his hand against the table. “Last week, my whole life made sense, or at least as much sense as you can reasonably expect it to. It was far from perfect, but I knew where I stood. One day was gonna look pretty much like the next. And now--my niece is grown! You should see her! Not a full week ago I was carrying her around the house on my shoulders and now she can read! My best friend’s kid just made Boy Scout and my sister is married and I don’t even know your last name!”

He stopped suddenly and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry.”

Carlos’ stomach lurched. His instinct of course was to sweep Cecil into his arms several sentences ago, to kiss his nose and forehead and lips, to let him nuzzle his face into the base of his neck. But that would be inappropriate.

“I’m sorry. None of this is your problem. It isn’t anyone’s fucking problem.”

“It’s okay--” 

\--and of course it wasn't okay, and there was a possibility that it would not be okay again and there was nothing he could say that could soothe either of them.

“I’ll just--I’ll just go.”

The slam of the door was unsettlingly final. 

And Carlos was alone again.


	5. A Haunted House

“ _Mom!_ ”

In the Carlsberg household, it didn’t matter what parent Janice shouted for. Abby, who was reviewing the family budget, snapped to attention at the kitchen table, and Steve shut off the sink and absent-mindedly wiped his wet, soapy hands on his jeans. 

Janice’s small round face was tight with concern as she moved towards them. “Put on the radio.”

Steve leaned over the little rounded rectangle in the corner, and the kitchen filled with Cecil's rich, rounded professional voice.

“--have all heard by now that something happened. I--I’m not sure what to tell you, what could soothe any fears you may have, because I can’t even soothe my own fears at this point. Um.”

Cecil did not often _um_ on air. 

“See?” Janice whispered.

“I’d like to thank Station Management, and all of you, Night Vale, for your patience while I sort out this...medical problem. And...while I figure out how this mixer works. Seriously, I have never seen this thing. Are you sure it’s the one we’ve always had? If I--”

The show exploded into deafening static and Steve reached for the volume knob. 

“--okay so that wasn’t the right one. Can I just--I’ll just leave it alone for now. Anyway. In my absence, our little station was kept afloat by the kind and generous spirit of all our beloved interns. To that end--to the families of Intern Heather, Intern Abir, and Int-- you know what? I’m sorry.”

He sounded weary. Something thudded on the table. “I can’t do this. I can’t.”

_I knew it, I knew he wasn’t ready to go back._

“I didn’t even know these people. I may have met them, once. I may have known their names, their skills, I might have been able to call up their faces. But they’re just _names_ now. How do you send off, with respect appropriate to their loss, people you’ve never met? I’ve been handed a list of names, which belong to people who lost their lives for the noble work of community radio, and I feel nothing for them. A generic pang, yes, a soft longing for stillborn friendships, yes, but...that’s about it. _I did not know them._ ”

He must have been very close to the microphone. Abby could hear his slow, shaking breaths in the hot stillness of the kitchen.

“Okay. You know what? Let’s move on. Traffic.”

Steve turned the volume down low, reducing the traffic report to an even murmur. 

“Mom. He is not okay.” Janice was chewing absently on the end of one of her braids.

“No, sweetheart, he is not.” Abby reached over and gently pulled the hair out of her daughter’s mouth. “But remember what I said about worrying?”

Janice rolled her eyes. “You do the worrying so I don’t have to.”

“Right. Go be a kid somewhere, will you? Catch bugs, thwart corporate terrorism.”

When she retreated, brow still contracted with concern, Abby looked at Steve’s small smile.

“He’ll be okay, Abs,” he said, as he tried to hop up and sit on the counter. “He’s already making that face when I start talking and he didn’t even come to the wedding.”

“How on earth did I marry such an optimist?”

She watched him slide gracelessly down the front of the cabinets and hop up again, this time landing on the counter-top with a thump. “It’ll be fine. His science fella will fix it, or the doctors will. I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

“Can you--” she swallowed. She didn’t really _believe_ in all that stuff, did she? But she was going to ask anyway. Just in case. The same way you ask your friends to chant for you when you’re looking for a new job. “Can you check the stars tonight?”

“I always do. But I’ll let you know if I see anything, you know, helpful or whatever.”

They sat together in silence, listening to the muffled sounds of Cecil arguing with an intern about how to cue the weather.

 

Abby was used to keeping an eye on people. She took over for their mother very early, and even before she was actually _gone_ Cecil proved he needed more looking-after than your average kid. Now of course she had Janice, and Steve was often absent-minded and careless with his talk and action, so he needed moderating too.

It was tiring, though, having Cecil in the house, worrying about him.

Through dinner he stared at Janice, quizzing her about her life (“So you’re a Brownie? Wait, Ms. Vickers still teaches at the elementary school? Seriously, how tall are you now? You clearly did not get _that_ from the Palmer side!”). He offered to help clear the table but got lost staring at her wedding photo. 

“Remembering anything?” Steve said, slapping him heartily on the back.

“No,” Cecil said carefully. “I should feel something though, shouldn’t I?”

“Eh, what’s ‘should’ for anyway? We should know exactly who is in control of our local government, but that doesn’t mean we do, am i right?”

“Yeah. Right.” Cecil continued to stare at the photograph. “Something like that.”

At the very least, she had the novelty of Cecil agreeing with Steve out loud.

He had never been this helpful around the house, though. He folded laundry in the living room while Janice watched her allotted hour of TV before bed. And then, he kind of disappeared.

Abby found him in the bathroom, sitting on the sink counter, staring into the mirror. His mouth was open and he was running his tongue over his teeth again and again, moving his jaw back and forth, hearing it click.

“Abby,” he breathed, “these are not my teeth.”

She waited for an explanation. 

“Didn’t I have braces?”

“No. We kept putting off because mom wasn’t--well. Because.”

“I remember them. I remember getting them tightened, I remember them scratching up my lip. And now I feel like a haunted house and I can’t--when did I get so old--”

“Cecil. Calm down.”

“--seriously Abby my teeth feel _so weird_ and I am suddenly older than the sand wastes and all alone.” He made a small, hysterical sound that could almost pass for weak laughter. “Isn’t that the funniest thing? The man who is apparently the love of my life is living in an apartment I’ve had for years, I could literally walk there, and I am still going to die alone and I don’t even get to remember the experience of what I’ve lost--I don’t even get the memories to fall back on--”

“Cecil, I mean it, you need to calm down--”

He inched closer to the mirror. “I remember staring at myself so nervously not a week ago, thinking _Jesus Cecil, your birthday’s coming up, you’re gonna be thirty in a couple-few years_ and feeling absolutely panicked because time was racing away from me, I was shaking too bad to finish shaving and nicked myself something good and I can’t even see a mark now even though I touch my skin and I feel where the little scab should be.” He prodded the side of his neck hard and leaned forward, meeting his own stare as he pressed his nose against the glass. He said nothing more.

Abby moved forward hesitantly, reached forward but did not touch him. “Cecil. Look at me.”

He didn’t respond. She looked between the two sets of eyes--one real, one reflected--and both were empty. He was no longer in the room.

“Gersh.” No response. He always reacted to that.

She reached out again, quickly, and shook his shoulder. “ _Cecil look at me--!_ ”

He turned suddenly. His eyes were still empty. He smiled, blinking rapidly.

“I’m sorry, Abby. I’m sorry. Am I fucking things up again? I am. I totally am.”

She couldn't meet his eyes. She looked away, towards the reflection.

His reflection was not smiling.


	6. No Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (potential mild triggers for suicidal ideation and emotional abuse in this chapter, because hey this story isn't sad enough amirite?)

Cecil’s apartment was very convenient.

He was surprised, all those years ago, when he got it, especially at that price. Sure the stairs creaked and whined, and the bathroom sink leaked something fierce, but it was his, it was cozy, and it was an easy walk to anywhere downtown. The drive to work was like, ten minutes, tops.

Cecil liked his apartment.

It took him a few minutes of fiddling with keys to realize that he did not live there anymore.

In his defense, he was rather drunk. And who could blame him for drowning a few sorrows? The week had been absolutely ghastly and he’d barely slept and he just didn’t want to be miserable for a while.

Everyone at the bar avoided him. Like they didn’t know how to talk to him, or didn’t want to deal with the explosion of emotions that could happen. He’d upset everyone at work, everyone at home, and even if he hadn’t spoken to him, he’d definitely upset Carlos.

Poor Carlos.

Poor Cecil, for that matter. 

These thoughts were thick and muddy as he turned away from the door that was no longer his and stomped down the creaking stairs. He could walk back to Abby’s from here, get his car in the morning. It would be a long walk, but maybe he would sober up a little.

He didn’t have a home to go back to. He bounced between the studio and his sister’s home, and he’d nearly invaded the home of a handsome stranger, a home still half full of stuff that was technically his.

Maybe he’d get hit by a car.

And _oh void above_ here was that handsome stranger, all strong jaw and sturdy build, coming up the walk just now _right now looking at him_ \--

_shit shit shit_ \--!

“Did you, uh, did you come by to get more of your stuff?”

Cecil tried a smile. _Affect an easy manner._ “Nah, I just forgot for a second. That I don’t live here. Sorry!”

“Oh. Oh, I see. Don’t worry about it.”

It seemed inappropriate to just breeze past him like this, but what else was there to say? Cecil stuck his hands in his back pockets and rocked forward on the balls of his feet. “Uh. Guess I should be getting out of here--”

“Do you wanna--d’you wanna come in and sit for a while?”

That was a bad idea. That was a great idea. Cecil licked his lips and looked up to the orange streetlamp above them. _No thanks, I've worried Abby enough for one week._ “Sure.”

Cecil gave himself a stern little pep talk on the way up the stairs. _No flirting. No kissing. Do not try and bed this guy. It’s not fair. You behave yourself, Cecil Palmer._

And then he heard a memory dragged from the depths, his mother's hollow, distant voice saying _Now you sit there and be a good Cecil_ and snorted laughter. 

Carlos gave him a curious look, but said nothing.

They sat on the sofa in silence. Cecil’s better judgement was on vacation, so he accepted the proffered beer, but sipped slowly, eyeing Carlos carefully in his peripheral vision.

“How’s the, uh, the memory thing?” Carlos asked, absentmindedly picking at the corner of the label on his bottle.

“Oh my god, it’s awful,” Cecil said, then burst into laughter. “It’s the worst. I have all these angry feelings about a sibling that doesn’t even exist here and just look at my teeth.”

Carlos stared at the rictus grin for a second, but again said nothing.

“No braces,” Cecil explained, which was apparently good enough. “I’m probably not even the Cecil you knew. I may be an entirely different Cecil, infinitely more terrible than the one you probably liked.”

“I definitely liked you, Cecil,” he said softly.

This was impossible to address, so Cecil decided to look around the living room like he hadn’t heard him. That was definitely his record player, he’d had it for as long as he could remember. The layout of the place was familiar. He smiled politely at Carlos.

“So you had another sibling?”

“Oh yeah. Bernard. Hated the shit out of me, let me tell you. You could reasonably argue that I was mom’s favorite. Then again, if I was she had a funny way of showing favoritism.” Cecil flicked the glass bottle thoughtfully and then went on, “it’s like, it’s really easy to look at all that attention and assume it was a good thing. But not all attention is good.”

“I know. Trust me, I know.” Carlos looked bitter as he drank again from the bottle, then softened a bit. “But you don’t remember those conversations, do you?”

Cecil paused to think, frowning, really searching his mind for something--anything. “No. Sorry. I can’t seem to find anything. Any details. It never happened to me.

“Like, okay, so I had this ex, right? Tony. Anthony. Cute, had great hair, and, well, he didn’t listen to the radio, which is always a plus for me, right? And it was, like, not a good relationship. Not good at all. So to me, right now it’s a miracle that I haven’t talked to him in a month. But I asked Abby about him, and--get this--he’s been dead for two years. Valentines Day. Box of Conversation Hearts when off right in his face.” He paused and sipped again to fill the space. “I’m not saying he deserved it, but...fuck, it’s weird. Like, I still avoid the coffee place down by the Ralph’s. Cute little cafe, makes a good mocha, but I know he likes to hang out there and my brain says _don’t do it Cecil, he’ll pull you right back in_ , even though I know he’s gone.”

“There’s a coffee shop by the Ralphs?”

“Oh. Oh no.” Cecil rubbed his eyes with his empty hand while reality crashed around him. “I have to ask Abby. If it was real here or if I just remember it from--from whatever.”

Carlos continued picking at the label on the bottle and didn’t look up as he said, “Anthony was real. Here, I mean, he was part of this--reality. You never told me about him. Never wanted to talk about it.”

“I mean...there’s not much to say.” Cecil leaned back and stretched an arm over the back of the sofa. He wanted to play casual, pretend everything was alright. Carlos looked so sweet, but vulnerable, and he wanted him to relax, wanted his own body to hint that none of this was a big deal. “He looked like--like someone I used to know. Italian, and knew a couple phrases. And I thought _this is it, we must be fate_ , because it never could have worked between me and this fling, it just wasn’t the right time, ya know? But I thought Tony was it. My second chance, right? 

“But oh my god, did we fight. I could never do anything right. And he’d say stuff like ‘Ooooh I guess it isn’t really meant to be, if it was it wouldn’t be so hard,’ and I always tried to keep calm because I wanted it to work, I thought that if I could somehow be good enough it would work, and then he would start throwing shit at me from old arguments and say he should have known better than getting involved with me, call me nasty things and accuse me of cheating and I’d just fucking lose it, you know, I just got hysterical. Scream myself hoarse and try to leave, but of course it was my fault because I got upset, because I could just--couldn’t be _reasonable_ , couldn’t _talk things out_ like normal people do, I had to freak out every time...and then he’s standing in front of the door and won’t let me pass, and I would like start crying, and he’d push me around or shake me really hard-- _shut up, Cecil, just shut up, why do you keep doing this to me?!_ \--and put his hand over my mouth and he wouldn’t let me go-- _where do you think you’re gonna go? You’re not leaving here angry with me, you’re not leaving until you calm down_.”

The anger swelled up fresh in his chest again, until he thought he would burst under the pressure. He had almost forgot where he was, why he was talking, before he heard Carlos’ soft, careful voice. “Why did you stay? Why did you go back--after that?”

Cecil shrugged, still staring at the corner of the coffee table--his coffee table, a good, fixed spot, a corner he had banged his shin on countless times. “I thought I was in love. I thought he was destiny. And I knew I wasn’t, you know, influencing him with my work, because he didn’t listen to the show. And anyway--where else would I go? Who else would put up with that?”

He swallowed massively from the bottle, suddenly wanting to be even farther from sobriety than he already was. “I just didn’t want to be alone.”

Carlos nodded but was quiet again. He crossed an ankle over his knee, leaning slightly away from Cecil, and it was probably a good idea for him to keep a distance between them. 

“Did I ever freak out like that on you? Is that something that--that this-me did?”

Carlos shrugged. “Sometimes. I mean it never really got that big. One time we argued because I work so much, and you thought I didn’t care about you. I didn’t think it was such a big deal--I mean I was definitely keeping you at arms’ length, but I didn’t know it at the time--and then you were like _just tell me if you don’t want me around, just tell me if I don’t mean anything to you_ and I remember...I remember I was so confused because _of course_ you meant so much to me, even then. And you were so upset and I didn’t know what to do about it.”

“What did you end up doing?”

“I made you dinner. We watched a movie. I found out that you’re ticklish.”

“I’m ticklish?”

Carlos laughed. “Yeah! I mean, you were.” He coughed unconvincingly into his hand and looked away. “Another time your cat got attacked--remember that? Oh. Bet you don’t, sorry--and you were so upset, and I tried to get you to go to sleep because there was nothing you could do and you threw a glass across the room and got so upset because there was no way you could sleep while your baby was in surgery.”

“Oh my god. I wasn’t even there and I’m sorry.” Cecil scrubbed a hand down his face, his cheeks hot. “How the fuck did you put up with me?”

“I just--” Carlos shrugged and coughed again. “I tried to keep in mind that you--feel things--a lot. Like, everything just seems more intense for you.” He looked away and said, almost casually, “And I mean, I loved you a lot, so. Yeah.”

“Yeah.” Cecil fought the urge to apologize again, although he wasn’t sure what for. He finished his drink and tapped his fingernail against the glass again. Carlos smiled vaguely and turned away

_and it’s mostly dark but there is a dim, flickering light and there is that face, that beautiful face, the only face he wants to look at for the rest of his life, with those wide, hungry eyes watching him in the dark, and then movement, and he shudders with the prickle of stubble against his neck--_

“Wait!”

Carlos looked back, biting his lip, confused and concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“Turn your head--like that--” Cecil looked ahead, skimming his eyes up and down the far wall, trying to catch it again in his peripheral vision, if only to make sense of it. “Damnit. _Damnit._ It’s gone again.”

“What is? Cecil, what--”

“I don’t know. It was small.” He set the bottle on the coffee table with a heavy thud. “I should go. I should--I don’t know.”

“I could drive you back to Abby’s.”

“No, no, it’s fine.” He waved a hand at Carlos as he strode towards the door. “It’s--nothing. The walk will do me good. See you--um. See you around.”

 

It would be easier if he could say he’d walked out with his head high, or even was a bit cautious in his retreat, but the honest answer was that he ran for it. 

He felt dizzy. The sidewalk was more uneven than he remembered. He thought about shortcuts but decided against them, for fear of stumbling over the low shrubbery. 

That weird vision was lingering and he wasn’t even sure if it was real. Was it just what he wanted? What he distantly hoped might happen? It didn’t feel like a memory. It was too immediate, too sensory, it didn’t feel like an old recording full of skips and poorly-synced audio. 

He trudged forward, looking at the clean, white cement of the sidewalk, the safest place to look. He didn’t want to see much else. He was half afraid of some other vision overtaking his senses, and he was impaired enough as it was. 

There wasn’t much traffic out tonight, their headlights splashing around him as they approached, red taillights spreading behind. 

One car slowed and moved slowly beside him.

“Cecil?”

_Damnit._ “Hi, Earl.” He looked up quickly and flashed his most winning smile, hoping to communicate that yes, everything was fine over here, he was not vaguely hoping he’d be hit by a car, and that Earl should just drive away and leave him in his misery.

“What are you doing out here?”

“Oh, you know. Making poor choices. The usual.”

“Get in, I’ll drive you back to Abby’s.”

“Nah, I’m fine. You should get home. Little--little what’s-his-name--”

“Roger.”

“Right. Roger will be wondering where you are.”

Earl growled. “Cecil, you stubborn little shit. _Get in the car._ ”

That was the dangerous tone, and Cecil complied, not meeting his eyes. “Thank you,” he said finally, as Earl started down the road. “I was fine. But thank you.”

Earl made that growling sound again. “I keep forgetting where you are,” he said. “What a mess you are right now.”

Cecil looked out the window. There was nothing he could say that wasn’t confrontational or vulnerable, and right now he didn't want to feel either.

“I want to help you, Cecil, and I need to lower my expectations a little to do that.”  
“What is that supposed to mean?” Cecil tried to keep his voice low and even.

“I keep forgetting where you are,” Earl repeated. “I’m expecting you to be--”

“ _Rational_.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“I mean--Cecil. The point you’re at in your life right now--it wasn’t easy on any of us. And I mean, the first time I around I was stuck somewhere too, so there wasn’t much I could do, but--”

“But what?” Cecil spat.

“Frankly, you scared the hell out of me. Of us.” He heard Earl breathe deeply before he went on, “Everything is more complex this time around. I’d do anything for you. I’m glad I was there to get you home in one piece. But you need to be more careful than you were. The first time.”

Cecil said nothing.

“Whatever,” Earl mumbled, angrily flicking his turn signal.

“I--” Cecil swallowed hard, keeping his eyes trained out the window. “I’m lost. I am completely lost.”

“I know.” Earl’s voice was softer, forgiving. “When you’re the only one around with a broken timeline, it’s like--”

“--drifting,” Cecil finished for him. “I don’t mean to cause trouble.”

Earl sighed, pulling up to the curb by the Carlsberg house. “You never did. Go to sleep it off. And Cecil?”

“Hmm?” Cecil was half out of the car, smiling vaguely.

“Call me. If you need something.”

“Sure.”

“I mean it. Call me.”


	7. An Experiment

There are certain things, Carlos knew, that you do not say out loud. He had spent a lot of his youth in careful observation of conversational convention. Here is what he had learned:

> 1\. duration of relationship is an important consideration before certain things of any depth, good or bad, are conversationally acceptable (e.g., the first time the word  _love_ almost sneaks out of your mouth is probably too early to say it without making the other person uncomfortable, even when you look at the side of his face while he’s laughing at a movie and feel like your heart is too small to hold everything you’re feeling);  
>  2\. there are times where your opinion on the subject is not necessary even if you are having an emotional experience based on what was said (e.g., when explaining why he dodged or flinched, people in his past used to feel compelled to say things like  _oh that’s awful, I’m so sorry_ , even if they were not emotionally intimate with him in any way, and he never figured out how to respond or how he should feel about the comments); and  
>  3\. do not speak solely to make yourself feel better in a situation without seriously considering the effect your words will have on the other party (e.g., when the boyfriend who now doesn’t remember you at all reveals a particular way in which he’s been hurt and you want to say something like  _he is lucky the Valentine candy got him before I did_ or  _I’m glad you made it through okay_ , you should refrain, because  
>       1. your relationship lacks the context it previously had, therefore making your protectiveness hollow and irrelevant; and  
>       2. the fact that he did not tell you before means that he is speaking for his own benefit rather than specifically to inform you.).

He knew all these things and tried to apply them as much as possible, but when he locked the door behind Cecil he wished there was something he could have said.

He’d never heard that story before. The ex in question had come up a few times, but he’d always said, “Oh, he was...a mistake. I was young and stupid once” or “it isn’t a big deal” or “hey look over there!”

Sympathy might have embarrassed him, since he seemed to blame himself, but--

_Oh, Carlos, you idiot!_

\--he probably should have countered it directly instead of just implying that his tempestuous feelings were merely _tolerable_ , he should have said they were a part of him and therefore important, that Anthony was _wrong_ and clearly _horrible_ \--

but that of course drifted a little too close to point number three and may have only made Cecil uncomfortable after that uncharacteristic moment of drunken vulnerability.

There are stories that must end without comment. There are questions without answers. These facts are painful, Carlos knew, and they are constant.

He turned his mind to a question he could answer, one he would, no matter how much work it took: What had happened to Cecil? And what could be done about it?

 

“Just sit there,” Carlos said, looking down at his clipboard and gesturing across the work table, “and I’ll sit here.” Clipboard, lab coat, the neutral terrain of this work table. Tape recorder between them like a wall. Equipment. This was good. He could keep his head together over here.

“So you _are_ a doctor,” Cecil said sweetly, sitting on the edge of the chair. “I guess I’m in good hands.” There was something different about him--the face was the same, and the clothes, and his hair (aside from the partial shaving), but there was something...careless about him, a roguishness, a very appealling--

 _Well that is enough of_ that, _Carlos._

“Oh--I’m, um, not a doctor.” Of course, why should that have surprised him? Cecil didn’t know him from Adam right now. “I’m a scientist, actually.”

“Ah! Even better. The doctors I saw in the ER have a theory. Two weeks, and now they have a theory.” Cecil shivered. “I don’t trust them. They hooked me up to some things this week and I don’t know what happened, but Abby freaked out on them.” He sighed. “She’s turned into the mother I never wanted.”

“You had a mother,” Carlos said softly. That much he remembered. And the cheerfully detached tone with which Cecil spoke of her.

“Of course I did. But she was never--like that.”

Carlos filed the detail about the late Ms. Palmer away for future theorizing. “So what’s the theory?”

“I shifted along one of the vertices, but independently.”

Carlos stopped short with a hand halfway across the table, forgetting for a moment what he’d been reaching for. “You what.”

“Shifted. Time and space. You know. _We all go together when we go_ ,” he sang softly, as though that should clarify things.

“Oh,” Carlos said, “Night Vale stuff.”

“Well _yeah_. Oh wait, wait, are you not from here? Oh man. That’s nuts. Like, how did you even _get_ here?” He leaned forward, elbows on the table, and for a moment Carlos could see the bright, excited Cecil he’d known. “So that was, like, a song we teach to kids in town so they understand the shift thing. I don’t know where it came from though. I mean, no one knows.” He looked thoughtfully into the distance, then shook his head.

“But what’s the shift thing?” Carlos pulled the modified EKG towards his end of the table and fiddled with the cords.

“It’s--it’s movement. Time, space, reality, whatever? Is this not a thing where you come from?”

“...No.”

“No way. Maybe you just don’t remember it.”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s just--not a thing.” He held his breath slightly as he crossed to the other side of the table. “Mind if I, you know, stick you? With these, I mean,” he added hastily, holding up the sticky rounds.

“By all means.” Cecil leaned back in his chair with that slightly guarded smile and indicated the stubbly spots over his temples. “You don’t have to shave anything, do you? It’s just starting to grow back and it itches like hell.”

“No, no, shouldn’t be a problem.”

Cecil nodded, and then burst out, “But what about when things go wrong? Like, _horribly_ wrong, so wrong it’s better if everyone collectively edges away from it and keeps their eyes on the ground like they didn’t notice?”

“Didn’t notice what?”

“Whatever it is. That went wrong.”

“Cecil, you can’t just move away from things when they’ve gone wrong.”

“Well apparently you can, Mr. Scientist, because here I am.” He narrowed his eyes slightly at Carlos. “No sciencey retort for that, huh?”

“No, I just--” Carlos frowned vaguely at Cecil’s chest. “Can you unbutton your shirt a little? Just the top two.” He reached into the cavernous pockets of his lab coat for a stethoscope.

“Whatever you say.”

Carlos carefully ignored the tone of that remark, and was equally careful not to study Cecil’s face while he applied the bell of the stethoscope. It was not difficult to keep the touch professional, the possibility of a caress on that achingly familiar territory was out of the question, there was no room for it, for those memories, there would be time later but right now there was a _problem_ and he was _figuring it out_. His skin was warm like always, too warm, and as soft as ever and there was that little scar-mole-thing but--

“Where’s your heart?”

“‘scuse me?”

Carlos crouched beside his chair and pressed his hand against Cecil’s chest. “Your heart. There’s like one, maybe two places it could be--”

“I mean I definitely still have one, I’m still upright and breathing--” Cecil’s laugh was forced and excessively casual.

Carlos moved the device around, then set it against the side of Cecil’s throat. “Well you have a pulse, it’s in there somewhere--unless--”

He slipped the bell back down the right side, just to check, to be sure.

“That’s the wrong side,” Cecil added, unhelpfully.

“But...there it is.”

There was an uncomfortable pause.

“Well anyway, I’m glad we found it,” Carlos said, with a sense of cheer he did not feel, “so we can carry on.”

Cecil sighed again, moving his head this way and that to give Carlos access to the places he needed to put the sticky bits.

Carlos sat across from him and flipped the switch on the recorder. “So I’m going to ask you a few questions. Then I’m going to check these vitals and later I’ll analyse the audio recording.”

“What’s the recording for?” Cecil’s right hand whipped quickly past his head, then forward again, as though shooing away a persistent insect.

“Well, your voice has some strange properties. I noticed them when I first came here. There seems to be a mild sedative effect, and an increase in suggestibility in those who listen to you speak for a length of time. I think people are compelled to listen to you. And I know you have some control over it, like sometimes there’s more power than other times. Or at least--”

“--there was,” Cecil finished for him.

“Yeah. I wonder if that’s still the case. I have some control samples I acquired for purely professional reasons, so I--are you alright?”

“Fine. Just, I know you probably live in this lab and all but some cleaning might be in order. Fucking fruit flies everywhere. Eeeugh.”

“Cecil...there aren’t any fruit flies in here.” Carlos leaned forward, watching carefully as Cecil swatted again. As far as he could see, there was nothing there.

“No need to get defensive there. Didn’t mean to insult you or anything, but they’re driving me crazy.”

“Trust me. We keep a very clean lab. And I haven’t done any work with _drosophila_ since I was in college.”

“The fuck is a drosophila?”

“Fruit flies. Very useful for experiments, and--”

Cecil dove out of his chair and under the table. Unfortunately, he was still attached to the modified EKG machine, which smashed to the ground beside him.

“What the hell was that, I mean just what--the hell--” He clamped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. “Fucking _Spire_ \--”

“What’s wrong?” Carlos slipped out of his chair and reached forward, pulling the small round stickers from Cecil and, in a moment of panic, clutching him closely, smoothing his hair in a way he’d always found comforting. “What happened?”

“I don’t _know_ there was this _thing_ and I am not opening my eyes until it’s gone.” Cecil lunged forward and pressed his face to Carlos’ chest, not intimately or tenderly but with panic. “It’s still there?” he said, muffled by the labcoat he was pressed against. “It is, isn’t it?”

“I don’t see anything, Ceec.” Carlos calmed enough to remember the reality of their position, a knife twist of ache in his chest as a small voice whispered in the back of his head, _this might be the last time you get to hold him._

He let go of Cecil’s head. He tried to push away. But Cecil pulled his hands away from his ears with a choked sound and tightened his arms around Carlos’ waist.

“Carlos. Listen to me. I’m sorry to do this to you. This is the most horrible thing I have ever said. But if you loved me--at any point, if there was ever--if all this is true, _do not let go_. Please.” His voice was cold, shaky, and worst of all, _commanding_.

“Okay.” Carlos chewed his lip. He could have pulled away, but he wouldn’t. This was the first time he could think of Cecil doing that thing, that thing he did with his voice that made people listen, to _him_.

But there was no time to think of that now. He tried to steady himself, to approach this scientifically. “What did you see?”

“I don’t know.”

“Describe it.”

“I _can’t_ , Carlos. There’s nothing to describe. Solid static. The test pattern of the universe. Flickery void stuff, _whatever_ , I just know it’s not good.”

“Alright. So let’s just--stay here for now.” That was not a viable solution for more than the next five minutes, namely because the experience--being this close to him while he was still so distant, knowing that he was a shield and not a lover--made his chest tighten. He patted Cecil’s back carefully, trying to find the line between reassuring and affectionate, between tolerable and agonizing.

“We’ll just stay here.”

Cecil was silent. His breathing was deceptively even, considering how his hands seemed to be shaking.

“Want me to call Earl?” It was worth a shot.

“Would that mean moving?”

“For, like, a minute.”

“Then no.” Cecil’s arms tightened around his waist because there was no justice in the universe.

Carlos coughed. “Dave? _Dave?_ ” He shrugged. “I don’t know if he’s back yet, but it’s worth a shot."

“What could he do?”

 _Pry you off of me._ “I’m not sure. But at least there would be someone who could move around the space a little. Maybe burn some sage or something.”

“Sage? You think _sage_ is gonna fix this? Oh my god, you really are an outsider. We need salt. Probably a little blood. Fresh water.”

“We’re fucked,” he added after a moment of thought.

“If you let go of me, I can get my phone. We can call your sister, or Old Woman Josie, or...anyone. Just let me go. Here--” He slipped his arms out of his lab coat and tried to pull it off, but Cecil’s face was still pinning part of it to his chest. “You can have this. Cover your face that way, keep your eyes closed, and I’ll call for help.”

“No.”

“Cecil, come on.”

“Carlos, _please_.”

Carlos tried to push backwards, away from Cecil, and found that he couldn’t. Not physically--there was no real restraint; he could have gotten out from Cecil’s grasp with a little wiggling. But it felt wrong, somehow, like every cell in his body was quietly protesting his efforts.

Every cell was trying to obey.

“Let me go,” he said quietly.

There was no commanding power in Carlos’ tone, no ancient magic creeping through his vocal chords, creating sound waves powerful enough to move people, to change them. But Cecil apparently sensed something in it, and his arms relaxed. “Go on,” he said.

His cells may have issued a collective sigh of relief as he scampered out from under the table.

 

“Well, you were right, this is more than a little sage can handle,” Old Woman Josie said. Erika had to be asked to step outside until she could stop howling, but Erika just watched the middle distance, her hand on Josie’s shoulder.

Cecil was still under the table. Occasionally, he made a soft, shrill noise, like a kitten trying to vocalize for the first time.

“Is there something we can do?” Carlos asked.

“Who knows? Let’s cleanse the place just to be sure, it can't hurt--”

Erika took her hand off Josie’s shoulder and reached across the table. There room was silent except for the solid _clunk_ of the tape recorder button. The little red light went off.

She leaned down and reached a long, thin hand under the table. “You can come out now,” she said.


	8. Patterns Breaking

Steve Carlsberg liked routine. Patterns have always revealed themselves to him, and anyway life is so much easier when you know what to do so well that your brain can drift off and put things together while your body is busy providing for the family.

But Cecil was in the house now, and that upset the routine a little.

Steve liked Cecil, liked him just fine, and it was weird and exciting that Cecil didn’t currently hate him as much as he usually did. His step-double-half-whatever brother was actually willing to talk to him, at a standard volume, instead of pacing angrily around and yelling.

So that was something.

He came home from work, same time as ever. They sat at the table for dinner, but no one said anything. Usually they talked, so the silence was kinda creepy. He watched Cecil push mashed potatoes around with a fork, stabbing carrots harder than was necessary, but not really eating anything. Abby was aggressively normal, chewing her way through the meatloaf with determination. Janice cleared her plate at a breakneck pace, and for the first time in recent memory, finish all her milk without prodding.

“MayIbeexcused?” she asked, back straight, and she was maybe excited, maybe nervous. Either way, she was out the door before Abby could finish giving her permission.

“That child is up to something,” she said, leaning back in her chair to watch the girl zoom down the hall.

“Nah, she’s a good egg.” Steve started clearing dishes. “You worry too much.”

“Did you not see her face just now? That is a girl with a plan. She thinks she’s sneaky.” She turned to Cecil. “Are you planning to eat anything today or should I take your plate so you can give up the pretense?”

Steve wasn’t sure how to interpret the looks they exchanged. _Unhappy_ , that was a good place to start. After a moment of staring at each other, he pushed away from the table and she snatched up the plate. 

Steve whistled cheerfully while he washed the dishes. Cecil was sitting on the patio, and that was going to be weird, because usually after he finished washing the dinner dishes he’d sit out and look at the sky, and sometimes Janice would sit with him but never, ever Cecil.

But it would be okay. He liked Cecil. 

Dinner was eaten, dishes were clean and drying, and there was less void than usual tonight. He dried his hands on his jeans on his way out the door, singing nonsense syllables under his breath.

Cecil had turned one of the plastic chairs to face the yard, and Steve could see a thin line of smoke dissipating over his head.

“If you have any comments about this--” he waved his hand without turning, and the smoke spiralled toward the sky, “--you’ll want to keep them to yourself.”

Steve pulled a chair around cheerfully and sat down next to him. “Oh no, don’t worry about it. I try not to question your life choices too much. I learned that lesson,” he said with a laugh.

“Abby won’t leave me alone about it. Or anything else really. Just--indiscriminate mothering. All day. Every day. _You did it before, you can do it again!_ , like I remember any of that.” He sighed and leaned back, stubbing out the cigarette on the heel of his shoe. “Whatever.”

“You seem upset,” Steve said after a moment’s thought. Not because he’d just realized it--of course he’d seen it before. He wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t oblivious. 

Cecil laughed, but it was dry and brittle and unsettling. “Yes, Steve Carlsberg, I am upset. Ten points for you.”

Well that was probably a good sign--before Cecil always used his full name, usually at full volume and with many gestures. Maybe he was getting back to his old self. 

“What’s got you all upset, brother?” Steve asked, gripping the arms of his chair, bracing for impact without thinking. 

“Nothing, really. I just did the most horrible thing I have ever done to someone who apparently cares for me, and I didn’t even feel bad about it. I don’t feel bad about it now. In fact, the only thing I feel bad about is that I don’t feel bad.” He lit another cigarette, brows furrowed. “I should, shouldn’t I? Feel bad, I mean. Like, what kind of monster am I? Oh, and I smashed some science thing. But that was an accident.”

Steve nodded, waving the smoke away with his free hand. “What was the horrible thing?”

“I influenced Carlos because I was afraid of the dark.”

“Well,” Steve said amiably, “you should be afraid of the dark! You never know who’s creeping around there, testing things on unsuspecting civilians and planting evidence to support lies about natural disasters and major tragedies and missile tests.”

“You probably could have just asked him to help you,” he added after a moment. “He would have. Oh boy, does he care about you. Bet he’d throw himself in front of a train for you. Or, like, jump out a window or something, or--”

“Okay, Steve, you are _officially_ not helping,” Cecil said, and there was a familiar edge to his voice, and Steve didn’t mind, because it was a hint of the old pattern, the routine they’d been in for years.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s true, you know.”

“No, I don’t know. Everyone knows but me.”

They sat quiet for a moment, watching the smoke curl towards the heavens with all their lights and arrows and shapes. 

“Steve?” Cecil asked after a moment.

“Yep?”

“Can you explain to me why I disliked you so much?”

“Uh.” _Oh no_. He’d been hoping that Abby would be the one to answer that question. “Well. You were socialized to be judgmental of opinions that threaten the status quo. Tradition of silence and all. And I am...not good at silence.”

“Must be some pretty intense opinions.”

“Well...yeah. And you kinda heard them at a bad time. I think. Anyway, I haven’t done anything right since.” He scratched his head. “Except throwing that other radio guy into the Desert when he threatened my Janice. You seemed pretty okay with that.”

“What other guy?”

“Kevin. You’re better off not knowing about that mess.” Steve shuddered. He still thought about Kevin sometimes. His seductive logic. His dangerous plans. He watched the arrows and the shadows for signs of Strexcorp, too, even if everyone else had forgotten about it.

“So you’re saying,” Cecil said, half turning towards Steve, “that I abruptly decided I didn’t like you, stuck with that decision, and even when you saved my niece I barely cared?”

“No, you cared about Janice, for sure.”

But Cecil didn’t seem to hear him. “Shit,” he whispered.

“Cecil, you can’t dwell things you don’t remember right now. Just keep moving forward. Look at me, I’m paralyzed with fear every time I hear that mysterious beeping sound--”

“Steve, _everyone_ hears a mysterious beeping sound,” Cecil interjected, but only slightly irritated.

“--yeah but I know what it _is_. Look!” He pointed upward. This was the longest he’d ever talked around Cecil, and an uncomfortable mixture of relief and concern filled his chest. “See that?”

There was a silence. The most polite silence Steve had ever heard.

“Um,” Cecil finally said, “no.”

This took the wind out of Steve a little; he was hoping maybe this thawed Cecil would look up and _see it_ , just once. “Oh. Well, anyway, I could hide away in my house waiting to be snatched up for reeducation or some horrible torture. But I don’t. I keep going to work, and PTA meetings, and trying to be a husband and a dad.” He reached out, risking a friend pat of the arm. “You just keep moving.”

“So you think I should run away from it.”

“No, I’m telling you to walk away as calmly as possible.”

Cecil pushed himself out of the chair and stretched, his face still pinched in discontent.

“Well,” Steve said cheerfully, without turning, “have a good night, Cecil!”

“'night.” 

There were three heavy footsteps, and then a pause. Did he maybe remember that time he forbid Steve from every wishing him a good or pleasant or nice anything?

“Hey Steve?”

“Hmm?” Now he turned, slowly, smiling calmly. He often addressed Cecil like a bear--no sudden movements for fear of initiating an instinctive attack.

Cecil was silhouetted in the kitchen light, his face in shadow, his shoulders slumped more than usual. “I’m sorry.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it, brother,” Steve said, louder than he intended, loud enough to drown out the nervous thunder in his head, how off balance this all was. 

“No, I mean it. I’m sorry. Whatever I did, it was unfair.”

There was no conceivable response to this. After a moment of silence, Cecil turned and went inside.

 

It was late. It was quiet.

For now at least.

Janice had come out for her nightly hour of television, but didn’t actually watch anything. She sat on one edge of the couch, watching her uncle from the corner of her eye. It was unnatural; usually when he was over she pulled herself onto the couch and snuggled right next to him. Sometimes she fell asleep with her head on his shoulder, sometimes she’d climb on his back and let him carry her to bed.

Steve didn’t think that was likely tonight. Cecil sat just as stiffly, on his end of the sofa, watching her too. “So,” he’d occasionally say, then try to find something to follow that. It was like they were so distant he didn’t even know what questions to ask. 

They sat and looked at each other. Abby, leaning against the wall between the kitchen and the living room, watched them both. Steve watched Abby. No one watched the flickering screen. 

After her hour was up, Janice started wiggling towards her chair, pulling herself expertly to the edge of the sofa.

“Want some help?” Cecil asked, finally able to pose a question.

“Only if she asks,” Abby whispered. She leaned down and kissed Janice’s forehead, then pulled the end of her braid out of her mouth "Stop that. You're gonna make yourself sick."

Steve hugged her close and kissed her cheek, forgetting the tension in the room for just a moment and remembering how lucky he was, having a family like this.

The tension crashed right back in when she pulled away, because she was having another staring contest with her uncle. He tried to smile.

“Night baby,” he said. “Wait. You probably--you’re clearly not--”

She smiled her sweetest smile, said “Goodnight!” a little too loudly, and rolled off down the hall.

 

Steve stood in the bedroom in shorts and an undershirt, still and listening. There had been a loud crash from the spare room, and a low, muffled sound somewhere between a scream and a growl. The sound was definitely human. But it was over now. 

Abby was already in bed. She had her head tucked under a pillow, but he could tell she wasn’t quite asleep. All the same, he moved as quietly as possible. She was stretched very thin lately and she needed her rest. 

He climbed into bed, and she rolled over against him before he was even settled under the sheet. She breathed slow and even, and rubbed her nose affectionately against his shoulder. 

“You asleep?” he whispered.

“Yes,” she said, muffled against his arm. 

He never knew what to do when she said that, so he waited. 

Finally, she lifted her head and said, “what is it, Steve?” and she sounded so tired he almost didn’t carry on.

“I’m worried,” he said finally.

“Aren’t we all. Go to sleep, Steve.”

“This is...not good. It’s like his entire personality is different. It’s more than just the memory thing.” He paused. “D’you know he apologize to me? Literally first time ever.”

“That’s great, Steve, please go to sleep.”

“And I know I can't do anything, really, we’re not blood or anything, but...I dunno, hun, he’s _family_. And it’s like he doesn’t know what to do with Janice anymore, and they were so close. Remember when he bought--”

“--the cookie thing, yes Steve, I wasn’t even in town and I remember. Now please. Go to sleep.”

They were still for a moment. Her breathing slowed.

There was another crash from the next room. 

“By all the dark gods _I just want to sleep--!_ ” Abby sat up wearily and threw the sheets off of her.

“I’ll go, I’m much more awake than you are.”

In the dim light from the sky outside he saw her shake her head. “I think this will need family. Unless he’s climbed out the window to go to Earl’s,” she added under her breath.

Steve settled back down and closed his eyes, resolving to stay at least partly awake until she came back. She did not come back for a long time.


	9. Bearing Up

“You really have changed,” Josie sighed as she opened the door, “you haven’t called me ‘ma’am’ in--”

“About ten years? Yeah, duly noted.”

“Hush, you.” She hugged him close, patting his back heartily, and ushered him inside. 

Looking over his shoulder, he said, “thanks for the--” but stopped short when he bumped into something smooth and bony. For just a second, he felt like he was under water, pushed against a rock by indifferent waves. 

He looked up, kept looking, craning his neck at the tall figure hunched in Josie’s hallway. “What,” he asked dully. “What.”

“Oh, right.” Josie edged past the huge, awesome figure like she hardly noticed it. “Cecil, meet Erika. Erika, you remember Cecil.”

“Josie--Josie, that’s--”

“Yeah, yeah, an angel. And then you say _Oh but angels don’t exist!_ ,” she said, pitching her voice down to imitate Cecil’s, “And I say _then what the hell do you think you’re looking at?_ and you say _not an angel, nuh-uh, nope_ , and try to pretend you’re not crying a little. But here she is, and there’s Erika, and don’t be startled because Erika’s making coffee in the kitchen. Are we all caught up now?”

She must have noticed that Cecil wasn’t following, because she turned and said something else, something he didn’t hear.

Cecil was rooted to the spot, tears streaming down his face. “It’s not…” he sobbed, “they don’t--”

“Oh come _on_ ,” she said. “Erika, can you please turn down your heavenly light? Cecil and I have some work to do.”

The not-Angel shrugged, a magnificent gesture for a creature that looked like it was at least 40 percent shoulders, and looked away apologetically as it folded its great wings closer to its body and shuffled down the hall. 

“Well?” Josie said from the end of the hall. “Come on while the coffee’s hot.”

At the table she had the decency to look away while he blew his nose into a paper napkin and wiped his streaming eyes on his sleeves. Finally, she said, “So tell me about this prophecy.”

He shrugged. “I can’t. I don’t remember getting the letter.”

“Does Carlos still have the letter?”

“Probably not. I’ve always burned them pretty promptly.”

"Don't suppose you told him about it?"

"Nope. Just that I had to be near Abby."

She nodded. “Good. Well, not in this case, but in general.” She leaned back and rubbed her eyes. “What’s been surprising people lately?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like...there are certain things you will be expected not to know, things that haven’t happened for you, like Carlos.” 

Cecil swallowed hard, uncomfortable for reasons he couldn’t articulate about this whole lost relationship being so easily summed up. A unit of time, once apparently full of love and hope and commitment, wrapped up in a name.

If Josie noticed his discomfort, she didn’t acknowledge it. “But there have to be other things--other bits of common ground that aren’t even, for whatever reason.”

“Every time I get within like 3 feet of a mirror, everyone panics. I’m missing a sibling. I’m apparently supposed to be left handed, and _these are not my teeth_.”

She nodded. “Okay. The mirror thing might be helpful.”

“How? What is it?” he asked.

She stared at him for a long moment, lips pursed and one eyebrow up, but said nothing.

“Okay, fine, I should be used to people refusing to tell me things by now.” He sipped his coffee, sweeping the drip off the side with his thumb before it could reach the checked table cloth. 

She shrugged. “I dunno. But it’s a place to start.” 

He drank more coffee and looked out the window. When he glanced back, she was staring at him shrewdly. “ _What?_ ”

“What did you do yesterday afternoon? Like, three o’clock?”

“Um...I was at work.”

“Specifically.”

“During the Weather I made a cup of coffee. The interns seem afraid of me, and I got really tired of their protective chants and rituals so I hid in the bathroom and played with the cat by the sink. A little bit after I finished the coffee I got the stabbing pain in my eye that means thirty seconds til dead air, finished the show and clocked out.”

“No spontaneous sweating or mystery injuries or anything?”

“No.”

“Huh,” she said, stirring her coffee slowly and thoughtfully. “You been in touch with Carlos at all?”

“Not since--you know. What happened.”

“You having any feelings about him? Any little sparks of love or somethin’?”

Cecil raised his coffee cup to hide his widening, embarrassed grin. “The feeling I’m having is, uh, a couple clicks south of love.”

“Some things about you will never change.” She slapped his arm lightly and laughed loudly.

“But oh sweet void and stars, Josie, _have you seen that ass_?” 

“‘Course I have. I’m old, I’m not dead.”

He sighed loudly and leaned back in his chair. “I was once a very lucky man.”

“Here’s a thought,” she said, stirring her coffee again, “you got a mirror in that room at Abby’s place?”

“Yeah.” He was grateful she hadn’t referred to it as _his room_ , because nothing was his, right now, and he was tired of everyone coyly pretending that it was. 

“Have a look in it. Really look. Watch yourself a minute. Make sure you have all the lights on, though.”

 

“Fuck--!”

Cecil dropped to his knees and felt around the inside of the closet for something to clean this with. Before it stained, or the house started purring in gratitude, or--

“ _Cecil!_ ” Abby’s stage-whisper at the door was accompanied by two soft knocks. “What. Are you doing. It's midnight!”

He darted across the room and opened the door a crack, sticking his head out with what he hoped was an innocent look. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you. Everything’s fine. Night!”

“Wait!” She pushed on the door and looked him over. “Cecil, what did you do?”

“Abs, it’s nothing. It’s fine. I’ll take care of it. Go to sleep.”

“Open the door.”

“ _Abby._ ”

“I’m not going until you let me in. I’ll stand her all night if I have to.”

She would, too. He huffed and opened the door. “Don’t panic. I have it under control.”

She may not have even heard him. She certainly didn’t acknowledge his words, but stared silently at the puddle on the floor of the closet, the streaks on the mirror and door.

“I’m gonna ask you this once,” she said, very slowly, and he could see her hands tighten at her sides. “Did you do this on purpose?”

“We’re not doing this right now.”

“Please answer me.”

He started to say “I don’t remember” but the words got stuck when he saw her face. _Of course_ she would get all protective and _of course_ she went right to the worst possible interpretation, and _of course_ she would try to pretend it was a casual question, like she hadn’t already decided to disbelieve whatever he said--

“No,” he hissed, “I didn’t. The frame’s broken on the mirror. It fell and I tried to catch it against my arms, and that was a bad plan because the top is much sharper than I expected.” And that was close enough. Closer to the truth than her assumption, at least.

She stared at him for a long moment.

“Abigail. I am fine.”

She huffed. “Let me have a look at them.” He looked away as he held up his arms, where the straight lines of broken skin had already started clotting. “These are pretty deep,” she said, and her tone was accusing.

“Yeah, catching broken glass at speed will do that.”

“Let me get some stuff--”

“Look, I appreciate everything you’re doing here and all but I can take care of myself, okay? I’ve stressed you enough. Go to bed.”

“You can’t wrap those by yourself.” She turned away, towards the door, but stopped short with her hand on the knob. “We’re all powerless here, Gersh. We all have to feel like we’re doing something.”

She left the door cracked open on her way out.

Cecil sat heavily on the floor, close enough to the mirror to see his sullen reflection. He ran his tongue over the crooked fence of his teeth without thinking. In the doorway of the closet, a grubby old t-shirt (probably Steve’s; before Cecil’s arrival this appeared to have been his conspiracy nest) sat in the puddle of blood on the floor. 

It wasn’t that bad. She didn’t need to worry. He sopped up the puddle and, for lack of anything else to do with it, left the shirt on the floor. It could go out tomorrow, unless the house decided it was an offering.

Abby didn’t say a word when she came back, just pressed damp paper towels against the wounds before placing gauze over them. She glared. 

“What are you angry about?” he asked. “It was an accident. I’ll fix the mirror.”

“I’m not worried about the stupid mirror.”

He shrugged. “I’ll fix me too. We heal fast.”

They were silent again. She tore first-aid tape with her teeth and flexed his arm to make sure it didn’t pull or bunch. 

“You should be more careful,” she said finally. “So what if you can look in mirrors now? You should still take basic safety precautions. You know how dangerous reflections are.” Her movements were swift and direct as she repacked the first aid kit. “What were you doing?”

“It fell, Abby.”

“How?”

She’d latched on to the problem like a bulldog and he couldn't shake her loose. Cecil scrubbed his hands over his eyes and muttered, “I talked to Josie. She suggested I look.”

“And before that? With the screaming?”

_Damnit._ Apparently the pillow had not muffled him enough. “Uh. Wasn’t feeling well this evening. Knocked over that shelf trying to get out from under the bed, and didn't exactly feel great about that.”

“What were you doing under the bed?” 

He shrugged. “I don’t know what to do about things anymore. I used to go to Earl’s, right? Or I’d call Tony and let him lecture me a little, or something. But now...what do I do? Who do I turn to? And _don’t_ say Carlos,” he added, seeing her expression. “I’m sure he’d be very kind and sweet and supportive. But I’m trying not to imply that something’s changed. It hasn’t, and it probably won’t, and I think I've hurt him enough.” He suppressed a shiver, thinking again of Carlos' response to being verbally influenced. 

He watched her pick nervously at her nails for a moment, then cleared his throat. “I’m gonna start looking for another apartment soon.”

“What? Why?”

“I’ve already taken his lover. I’m not taking his home.”

 

There was a time when Cecil loved his job. As a kid he’d wrapped his life around it, and it had been, for a very long time, the oar with which he steered his chaotic, lonely life. 

Lately, though, it was fucking miserable. 

He’d figured out how the weird mixer worked and convinced at least one intern to talk to him. He even found himself growing fond of the cat and it's hoard of hovering kittens.

But everyone talked to him like they were at a funeral. Under every sentence and inside every sympathetic smile was an implied _we’re sorry for your loss_. He’d never been very good at filtering his thoughts at the microphone, and it seemed like every show just made the unspoken condolences worse. 

On his way home from work he stopped in at the Ralph’s to pick up a few things for Abby (milk, butter, rice flour, paint chips, nutmeg) and the woman at the register gave him the saddest smile he’d ever seen, and her “have a nice day” could have easily translated to “you’re so brave, bearing up like this”. He managed to keep it together on his way out of the store, but slammed the car door and thumped the steering wheel, hissing between his teeth. He'd disrupted the scabs under one of the bandages and had to wrap a few spare napkins around the gauze to keep from ruining one of his good work tunics. 

_Why was all of Night Vale so invested in his personal business?_

He beat Abby and Steve home from work, and Janice was supposed to be out with her friends for a Girl Scout thing.

He let himself in and stomped through the kitchen, slamming cabinet doors and viciously hipchecking the fridge closed after putting away the perishables. The microwave hooted nervously; the older models got skittish after a few years.

“Shut up, you,” he spat. 

He was so angry he almost didn’t notice it at all, and had in fact walked past it three times before he finally saw it.

There was a plate on the table with a little mountain of cookies and an envelope. Cecil knew better than to just eat mystery cookies without performing the necessary tests, but there was a little note that said TO UNCLE CECIL in Janice’s messy, curly handwriting. He sat down, smiling despite himself. She’d grown up to be a sweet kid, and he hoped he’d had something to do with that. 

He unfolded the note:

_Dear Uncle Cecil,_

_I made your favorite cookies that you like, the ones with the nuts and the white chocolate because I thought they might help you feel better. Also here are some pictures to help you remember things like they used to be._

_I hope things are regular soon. I love you._

_Sincerely,_

_Janice_

He picked up a cookie and stared at it. He didn’t even like white chocolate. But it was such a sweet gesture. He chewed thoughtfully, turning the envelope over in his hands. Did he want to do this? Could he?

And was it safe to do this?

He finished his cookie and brushed the crumbs off of his fingers. He carefully lifted the flap of the envelope and pulled out the small stack of photos. 

On top was a picture of Janice at a scouting function, and a stranger wearing his face held a microphone for her--presumably reporting on whatever the event was. Below that, this same stranger in a glorious Christmas sweater, giving a hell of a side-eye to his brother in law. 

More family photos. Here a selfie with Abby, who was trying to pretend she didn’t approve, followed by a shot of Earl and Roger at the end of the table at some Thanksgiving, both grinning in frightened, exhausted gratitude that the Spire had spared them for another year. And under that--

“Oh,” he whispered out loud, the wind pushed out of him by the force of the image. Just looking at it he could almost hear the laugh, that charming voice say _I just laugh when I’m happy_. Carlos was looking at the camera, and Cecil was looking at Carlos, and he felt that ache again in his chest, the hollow space left behind in the absence of _that_ , whatever it is, whatever it had felt like. 

“Oh,” he said again.

He didn’t want to look at the rest of the photos. He didn’t even put them back in the envelope. He stood up and stumbled towards the spare room. He burrowed under the blankets and sheets and pillows, and decided to stay there for the rest of the night.


	10. The Neighborly Thing

He knew on a Friday afternoon, although it was hard to say how he knew. Certain bits of knowledge just dropped in, and sometimes he read things or saw things and it took some time to process them. However it happened, he understood what he knew on a bright, cheerful Friday afternoon.

He sipped his coffee. He sighed lightly.

“Oh no,” Kevin said to himself, tracing smiley faces on the smeared desktop absently-mindedly. “Poor Carlos!” 

And poor Cecil! One of the things he knew was that he was awfully distracted lately, pulled away from his work with all those sad personal digressions. It was like he wasn’t even trying!

He didn’t hate Cecil. Sure, that angry little man had been a thorn in his side since the second they laid eyes on each other, but he knew Cecil couldn’t help it. No one had ever taught him proper work ethics! How could he be expected to fulfill his full productive potential if he couldn’t even manage a six-and-a-half day work week?

Carlos, though, Carlos was getting so much done. One other thing he knew was that Carlos was determined to solve this problem, he was just _all about_ fixing whatever had broken. He could almost see him, toiling away in his little lab, poking things and making all kinds of graphs and charts labeled in an orderly fashion. 

He should give them a little help. It would be the neighborly thing to do! And anyway, if Cecil had lost enough time to forget all about Carlos, he may have lost enough to be malleable--maybe Kevin could help him more! _Maybe_ he could reach him this time, help him learn to be happy and productive and at peace.

Maybe Cecil would help him, too! Wouldn’t that be _wonderful_? Neighbors bringing their communities together through a shared quest to understand their long, painful lives.

He thought about Carlos and Cecil, together, their smiles, and then he thought about _someone else_ who could not smile anymore, who was just clean and empty inside, a vessel for light and knowledge and and his own smile twisted painfully, and there was someone else still who was gone now, just gone--

_no no no_ he shouldn’t have thought about them, he didn’t like it. He couldn’t feel sad anymore, he didn’t think--he hadn’t been sad in years! (And to think he once needed pills to drive the sadness away, lost _days_ in bed a mirthless husk, waiting for relief even while he feared it might not come, drawing strength from _them_ and their understanding, not from endless faith in the Blessings of a Smiling God).

But he could still get angry, and he didn’t like to be angry, he thought bad and possibly illegal things, things _specifically_ pointed out in his employee handbook as wrong and horrible, especially when he was angry about them.

He shook his head and whispered “no”, softly, repeatedly, a litany of denial, reaching away from the anger and hurt and towards the happiness of his Perfect Self.

When he felt clean and cheerful again, he picked up his phone.

 

“Hello?” the voice on the other end was smooth and suspicious. 

“Hey!” Kevin chirped. “I bet you don’t remember me at all, huh?”

“Um.” There was a pause on the other end of the line. A long one. And the undertone of that pause was _well of course not, silly!_ “No,” Cecil said finally.

“Well! Let me just catch you up then, okay? My name is Kevin, and I work in Desert Bluffs--”

“Oh, fuck,” he heard Cecil breathe, but he decided not to respond. _He can’t help it, Kevin,_ he reminded himself. _You need to be the bigger person here._

“--at the radio station! Just like you. Anyway, we met a little bit ago and, while we weren’t exactly the best of friends, I heard about what happened and I said to myself, ‘Kevin,' I said, 'you should give him a call and see how he’s bearing up!’”

Silence. Kevin waited patiently, tracing bright smiling suns in the blood on his desk. When he realized an answer wasn’t forthcoming, he added, “I might be able to help.”

“I highly doubt I could get any help from Desert Bluffs,” Cecil said finally, petulantly, but it sounded to Kevin like he was thawing a little. He knew it! Deep down inside, Cecil wanted to be good, to make sound responsible choices!

“You and I have a lot more in common than you think, Cecil,” Kevin said sweetly. “Why, I bet you’d be just _shocked_ to see how much.”

“I don’t--”

“I understand your suspicion,” Kevin interrupted, and he kept his voice smooth and kind, “but just hear me out. Tomorrow I’ve got half a day, why don’t you meet me at the Starbucks on the edge of town? Just off Route 800, you can’t miss it. Sound good?”

“I--what--?”

“Great! I’ll be there after lunch. Until tomorrow, Cecil!”

He hung up the phone, humming a little tune under his breath and crossing _Call Cecil_ off of his to-do list. 

There was a stabbing pain the back of his left eyesocket. Thirty seconds to dead air. He turned back to his dripping microphone with a smile and flipped it on, waiting patiently for the Weather Report to end before saying, “Welcome back, Desert Bluffs! Here’s more good news for you on this beautiful day, awash with pure, bright blessings from a Smiling God!”

 

Kevin was trying to be patient.

Sure he was a little tired--who wouldn’t be, after the night he’d had!--but otherwise he felt fine, in his chair by the door, waiting. It was _so hard_ to do nothing, he just wanted to be productive! But he would suffer through. This was for the greater good. In the long run, he told himself, he’d be adding to the cumulative productiveness of the entire universe, and _that_ was worth a few fidgety minutes of stasis.

He smiled at the barista. He’d assured her when he came in that he wasn’t just loitering, oh no! He was waiting, and would procure goods and services just as soon as his guest arrived.

She’d nodded with a strange sort of smile, all wide eyes and teeth, and hadn’t met his eyes since. He watched her wipe down the counter and resisted the urge to grab the cloth away from her, show her how to do it _better_.

But it was too late for that, now--a car with the first and last name of its owner, as well as his blood type, clear as day on the Night Vale plates--pulled up out front. _Oh!_ Kevin thought, sitting up straighter in the wooden chair, _I didn’t realize he was a universal donor!_

He watched Cecil slam the door and crush a cigarette out under the heel of his very bright and cheerful rainboots. He walked into the cool, efficient space and looked around. He caught sight of Kevin and stopped short, blinking.

Kevin waved cheerfully. “Hey friend! Over here!”

“Holy shit,” Cecil whispered. “Are you alright? Do you need--here, get in my car. Night Vale General is probably closer than your hospital, I’ll vouch for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your _face_!”

“Oh! No, it's--it's just like that. Thank you for your offer, though.” Kevin already preferred this Cecil over the sullen, paranoid one he’d met before. “Let’s get a coffee, okay?”

Kevin waited patiently for the barista to turn her wide eyes on him. He ordered the most expensive thing he could consider drinking, and although it would be far too sweet for his simple taste, he always made a point of spreading resources around and keeping the economy of Desert Bluffs moving.

“And for you?” He turned. Cecil was staring at his jacket with an expression Kevin couldn’t identify. “Cecil?”

Cecil jumped as though startled, then shook his head quickly. “Uh. Something big with a lot of caffeine.”

“Oh, good idea! Can you add an extra shot of espresso to mine?” 

Cecil pulled out his wallet and said, “Separate orders, please--”

“Cecil, I invited you! Put that away. Your money’s no good here!”

“No, really, I can’t let you do that,” he said, “it’s already weird enough that I’m here--”

“I mean that literally. Your money is useless in Desert Bluffs.” He handed the barista his StrexCard and she offered the thumbprint pad with shaking hands.

“Thanks ever so,” Kevin chirped, picking up the coffees and sweeping back to the table by the door. “Good call on the extra caffeine, I am absolutely _beat_. It was my turn for the community nightmare last night--”

“Huh?”

“Horrific trauma just takes up _so_ much time and resources! So everyone who participated in the Merger takes turns having the night terror. It happens before your half-day so it doesn’t impact your productivity too much, and spending half a day looking frantically for something to fill the panicked, crushing void in your chest really stimulates the economy!”

Cecil stared at him. “The Merger.”

“Oh! Of course you don’t remember that either. And anyway we are completely off-topic, I’m sorry.” He sipped his drink and tried not to make a face at the cloying sweetness. “So. I understand you broke time again.”

“I didn’t do it,” Cecil said, slapping his palm against the table, a tad defensively in Kevin’s opinion. “It just happened. It was prophecy.”

“ _Prophecy!_ Oh, you Night Vale folks are so quaint.”

Cecil looked at him across the table, and he seemed a little annoyed. “Well apparently it has _quaintly_ destroyed my life,” he snapped. 

“Yes, I was so sorry to hear about that. You and Carlos--” he felt his eye socket twitch “--were so sweet together--” his teeth ground together “--it’s so sad to see something like that happen to good people--” _it’s not fair it’s not fair IT’S NOT FAIR_

“You, uh, you okay over there?”

“No,” Kevin whispered. “No.”

“No? Look, I meant what I said, I can get them to treat you at the hospital.”

“No,” Kevin said again, slightly louder. “No, no, no no no--”

“Seriously? You look like hell.”

“No, no, _no._ ” He sighed, cheerfully. “There! Oh, I didn’t mean to worry you,” he added, when he saw the concern twisting Cecil’s eyebrows together. “Just took a little repression exercise, that’s all.”

Cecil nodded. “I can respect that.”

Kevin beamed at him. “Well that’s just peachy keen! So, as I was saying on the phone. You and I have a lot in common. You may have noticed. A slight resemblance.”

Cecil looked away a moment and shuddered. “I’m still getting used to this being my face. There’s a lot more, uh, lines then I’m used to.” He ran his tongue over his teeth.

Kevin nodded sympathetically. Poor Cecil! He thought about offering to refer him to someone who could fix it up for him, if that would make him less sad and lazy, but reminded himself that he was there for a reason, that they had business to attend to.

“I think our similarities are more than skin deep,” he said. “Oh come on, don’t give me that look. Think about it. Us two dashingly handsome fellows who just _happened_ to be aggressively assigned the same job, right next to each other?”

Cecil said nothing, but his features seemed to soften a bit. Maybe he was actually thinking about it! Good. _Great!_ Kevin pressed on optimistically. “I can't promise success, of course, but maybe I can at least give you some more...data, for you and your scientist?”

“He’s hardly my scientist,” Cecil muttered, fiddling with the lid of his coffee cup. 

“But you’d have to do something for me, of course. Nothing big, nothing risky or anything. I’ll give you information, and you give me information.”

“About what?” There was that old Night Vale skepticism. It was so cute!

“About _you_. About the Cecil I’m talking to now. I want to be your friend. I want to help you, and understand you, and guide you in the right direction.” This was all true. It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was enough of the truth for Kevin not to feel bad.

Cecil’s eyebrows contracted again. “Do you realize how creepy you sound?”

Kevin felt a flair of frustration in his stomach, but swallowed it. This was not a time for him to become less kind. “If we have as much in common as I think we do,” he said, “we can accomplish a lot. Oh! But one other thing.”

“Here it comes,” Cecil muttered. 

“You probably shouldn’t tell anyone else we’re talking like this. I don’t think your friends back in Night Vale would understand. And anyway, if we keep that a secret, whatever we figure out together can be a nice little surprise for your sister and Carlos and your dear little niece. What do you say?”

He smiled brightly and extended a hand. Cecil stared at it in horror.

“Whoops!” He scrubbed his reddened palm clean with a paper napkin. He’d forgotten Cecil was so touchy about these things!

They watched each other for a long moment. 

He reached forward again, smiling still, willing Cecil to accept. 

Kevin silently offered praise and gratitude for the Blessings of the Smiling God as Cecil shook his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I admit, at least 30% of my justification for this chapter was how much I love writing Kevin-voice, and 10% was a desire to air my weird Kevin-theories. 
> 
> (also we are so far away from canon continuity that it feels silly to even point it out now.)


	11. Anger, As Opposed to Sorrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (okay, so let me just say: I'm really proud of this story, so far. And I've gotten a lot of really great comments on it, and I haven't responded to all of them because I don't always know what to say. But thank you. I love working on this, and I love that you all are invested in it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.)

Carlos had spent many years cultivating an even temper. He’d become very familiar with the effects of angry outbursts and had resolved, in his teens, to Not Be That Person. He took deep breaths, he counted, he left a situation when he needed to cool down. It was constant work--

“Riiight, like, damn, I almost cried.”

\--but it was worth it. He was working at it over lunch, in fact, on a sooty Wednesday afternoon, just as he had every time he’d left the apartment this week.

“I know, his voice just _wrecks me_. Every time.”

That was when he started listening to the ambient conversation.

“Absolutely fucks me up.”

Cecil ( _his sweet Cecil, his best beloved, that distant voice he tried not to hear_ ) didn’t have a discreet bone in his body. So of course the whole town knew his personal business.

“Last week he didn’t even say a name. Just ‘the Scientist’.”

And, by extension, how little of that business currently involved Carlos.

“I know! My wife called me at work, she was crying so hard I couldn’t understand her.”

Cecil had expressed more than once on air how he felt about the way people talked to him, lately. What he did not know--could not know, Carlos reflected bitterly, picking at the crust of a piece of pie he’d been trying to eat for an hour--was that no one was talking to Carlos at all.

“I mean, it can’t last forever, can it?”

They sure talked _about_ him, though.

“I dunno, man.”

He and Cecil used to joke that the town treated their relationship like a soap opera. On two occasions he’d found members of the Secret Police in the bushes with binoculars and popcorn. It used to be funny. It used to be sweet, almost.

“That would be wrong. So wrong.”

It was not sweet anymore.

“So unfair.”

It was like they didn’t even know he was there, sitting behind them, bitterly trying to choke down a slice of rhubarb pie in a mouth that was dry as a grave.

“Do you think Carlos can fix it? I mean he kind of has to. Give the whole thing a nice symmetry.”

And that was it--that was the last straw, the last fucking--

Carlos stood clumsily and threw his napkin on the plate of barely touched pie. “Who knows?” He snapped. “Tune in next week for the _shocking finale_ of my relationship!”

The two men at the table in front of him jumped slightly and looked towards him.

He stormed toward the door, then turned suddenly and stormed back to the register. He paid for his pie and tossed a few singles on the table, because no matter how angry he was he’d never stiff someone their livelihood.

That settled, he stomped out into the hot, grim afternoon air, pulling the lapels of his labcoat over his mouth and nose.

The soot settled anyway, it got everywhere. In the car he heard Cecil’s careful, soothing voice discuss its unknown origins and its suspicious intentions. His radio refused to be turned off. It was possible that the car missed him, too.

“ _It’s just fucking dust!_ ” Carlos shouted suddenly. He fumed at the red light overhead, obscured by small black clouds. Hot, angry tears left clean streaks down his cheeks, dripping black onto a labcoat already dingy from the day's outings. “It’s all--just-- _dust_ \--!”

And some small, exhausted part of him thought _huh. I thought we were all out of tears_.

 

The test tubes bubbled and frothed better than usual. Perhaps they were afraid of this soot-covered creature growling “hmm” and “I see” at them.

He stabbed the keys on his computer aggressively. _Correlating data_ , he said to himself. _Examining the facts. Sciencing all over the place._

The tape recorder was perfectly normal. The broken EKG machine had been recently tested, before the incident, to be sure his modifications wouldn’t accidentally kill anyone.

So the anomaly had come, without a doubt, from Cecil. There were no other variables to eliminate.

Cecil had seemed suitably embarrassed when he’d emerged from under the work table, brushing dust off his clothes and not meeting anyone’s eye. He’d apparently looked right through them, even Erika, a creature Carlos would have thought impossible to ignore. Mumbling something that may have been an apology, he fled for the door.

And he hadn’t met Carlos’ eyes since. They passed each other once at the little coffee shop by the record store, where Cecil stared at the menu like he was lost. It was tempting to tell him “You like the red eye chai with an extra shot of espresso, and you have to show them a note from your doctor to verify your nervous system can handle it.” But when Carlos walked in, he instantly became very interested in the bagged whole beans by the register.

So when he passed him outside the radio station, leaning on his car with a cigarette and a furtive glance around, like a teenager scared of getting caught, Carlos strode right past like he didn’t see him, like he wasn’t suddenly light-headed with the fear-pain-loss-anger that had been swamping him since this whole stupid fucking thing happened.

Consulting Cecil was clearly not an option.

He fumed over it in the shower, watching the black water swirl down the drain, scrubbing his skin more aggressively than he needed to until his skin was red and stinging, digging his nails into his scalp.

He had a right to be angry. Didn’t he? He was doing his best, damnit. He was working really hard, dedicating a lot of thoughtful looks and computer algorithms to this problem, because right now it was the most important problem, the only problem. He could have sat Cecil down and talked him through their relationship, from the first word they said to each other to the little violet box he’d shoved in the back of his sock drawer because looking at it made him want to scream or cry or hit something. He could have grabbed Cecil by the shoulders and moved very close, until their foreheads touched and their noses brushed, until they couldn’t see anything but each other, filling their senses with each other and waiting until Cecil's body remembered where his heart belonged.

It wasn’t fair to be angry with Cecil. But it was easier, now, to be angry than to keep being sad. The sorrow crippled him, laid him low, blurred everything together. It still hurt, but it was a dull ache, like his bad knee, instead of the fresh sting of a new injury.

He understood all of this. And still, he fumed.

No, asking Cecil was definitely not an option.

 

 

“So who is it?” Josie asked, cutting onions into strips.

“Huh?”

“What neighbor lady or teacher or auntie or abuela do I remind you of? I know that look.”

Consulting Josie had been a gamble for sure. If there was an answer she didn’t have, one of her Angels might know, and she was actually willing to ask them. She had a gift for bloodstone ritual and minor prophecy. It was rumored her sourdough starter predated the first Apollo mission. But she was also one of Cecil’s closest friends.

“Oh. Uh. My tia.” And there was that issue, too. He found himself continuing, and he wasn’t sure if it was some weird field-of-honesty that Josie generated or if the memory of his aunt’s affection, suddenly returned, was holding on. “She was...she was great. My mom’s sister. My dad used to call her the Witch, and she called him things I got smacked in the back of the head for saying.”

Josie snickered over her cutting board. “English or Spanish?”

“Both.” Carlos laughed. “She’d have insulted him in Russian if she knew it.”

“And now you should explain this.” She gestured towards the onions and peppers on her counter. “The spirits moved me towards sausage and peppers today. I wish the spirits would poke their heads in again, I’d like to remind them that I’d prefer an omelette right about now. Or some french toast,” she said, raising her voice.

“Sorry. I--I didn’t mean to interrupt your brunch plans.”

She waved him off. “If it wasn’t you, it would be something else. But this is Italian, correct me if I’m wrong. Your tia make sausage and peppers?”

“No. Maggie.” God, he hadn’t thought about Maggie in years. “Well, Maggie’s mom. A girl from our parish. I ended spending a lot of time with her when things got, you know, heavy at my parent’s place. And her mom made sausage and peppers on Sundays. Not every Sunday, but a lot of them.” Why was he telling her this?

“You must really be a mess then,” Josie said, “if I’m being compelled towards your comfort foods.”

“Sorry,” he said again, looking away.

“Don’t worry about it. But you better stay for lunch, boy,” she said, and she gestured with the hand that held the knife in that classic didn’t-realize-it-was-a-threat Night Vale fashion.

“Yes ma’am." He raised his hands over his head in a gesture of surrender.

“So what’s happening?”

“Okay. I’ve eliminated all the other variables, which leads me to conclude that whatever happened in my lab last week, it was generated by Cecil. Or directly involved him. Basically, it wouldn’t have happened if I tried that same protocol on another subject.”

“Go on.” Josie seemed distracted, fussing with the frying pan, but if she was half as shrewd as he expected, she was absorbing every detail.

“I know better than to ask about the tapes he found in the closet, even if he could remember them. And he would never explain whatever the thing is with mirrors.” <em>And now he never would,</em> he did not say.

“He doesn’t know what it is,” Josie said. “Even before this--whatever it is--he didn’t know. There were ways to find out, sure, but...you know him. Cecil ‘willful ignorance’ Palmer.”

“Before he threw himself under the table,” _and used his natural skills against me for the first time,_ , he did not add, “he said he saw fruit flies. I think it’s the flickering thing, I bet you anything. It started with the tape recorder. Erika knew well enough to turn it off.”

“Right.”

“Josie...I know he came to see you recently. Did that--did you get anything?” He knew he sounded desperate. This was probably the only time it didn’t bother him.

“Hmm.” She handed him a bottle of white wine and a waiter’s corkscrew. “Get into that, will you?”

Carlos popped the cork and handed it back, waiting. He knew better than to rush ( _anyone who was like his tia_ ) someone like Josie. She’d speak in her own time.

She poured about half the bottle of wine into the pan. “He doesn’t know about the auction. At all. I asked him a very leading question, and not only has nothing...happened with that, he wasn’t suspicious of the question. He has no idea.”

“Do you think that’s involved here?”

She shrugged, and her face was thoughtful as she covered the pan. “I dunno. But it’s data, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Yeah it is. Thank you.”

“If you run into him, ask how his homework went. Tell him I told you to ask.” She cast that shrewd look in his direction again. “That’s enough business. Erika, set the table please,” she called over her shoulder.

“I’m sorry to put you out like this,” Carlos said, brushing his fingers through his hair. “All this work for a bit of information.”

She laughed and shook her head. “So you still haven’t figured out what you’re really doing here?”

Of course he had. Of course he knew. He felt his face grow hot and looked away again. “There isn’t anyone else,” he mumbled. “Who will just talk to me. Not...around me.”

 

 

Carlos didn’t often think about what came before Night Vale. It was a blur, and the things that stood out in sharp relief were painful and he pushed them away when they came up.

But in the car, driving home, with that brown paper bag in the seat beside him, he thought about college.

Sophomore year at U of WII, his twenty-first birthday. He’d tended to avoid drinking--he’d never liked the foul-smelling beer his father had preferred, and hard liquor wasn’t easy to come by for a nerdy, reclusive teenager even if he’d wanted it.

But his boyfriend at the time--Ethan? Ian? God, what was his name?--thought that they needed to do shots. _You only turn twenty-one once, hun. Live a little!_  And Ethan-Ian(-Allen??) pulled out the bottle of Patron he'd been hiding with a flourish.

_Get it? Because, y’know--_

And Carlos had waved them off and agreed to the shot, if only so they wouldn’t have to stumble through the end of that sentence, and then stumble through all the reasons they didn’t mean it like that, expecting him to reassure them like they were the ones who'd been stepped on.

They provided him with salt and a piece of lemon stolen from the dining hall, and a tiny glass.  _Happy birthday, babe,_ his boyfriend had said. _  
_

_Jesus--fuck--shit--mother of_ God _that’s disgusting._

And his roommate had nearly laughed himself sick at the thought of Carlos disliking tequila.

There was no reason for him to think about that now, driving home beside a bottle of whiskey. He hadn’t thought about him (Allen. Definitely Allen.) in years. And he hadn’t been really drunk since before he got to Night Vale, whenever that had been.

_Whelp,_ he thought, _first time for everything._

It was some work, digging through the cabinets for an appropriate vessel. Didn’t they have tumblers or something? The cabinets had been playing tricks on him lately, hiding things and causing trouble like a child misbehaving to test the limits of its sitter. Finally he found one of Cecil’s mismatched teacups, and it seemed fitting, somehow, and anyway he was tired of fighting with the apartment.

At the table he poured himself a drink and stared at his phone.

He’d have to call him. They’d have to see each other.

_And Cecil will have to stop pretending you’re not there, he’ll have to help you out a little and stop acting like it’s already a lost cause._

Josie’s advice had been sound, and whatever experience Cecil had had would provide valuable data. And he might have something to say about the subjective experience of what happened in the lab.

_And he can fucking look you in the eye and apologize for using you like that, for doubting that you’d have moved heaven and earth to protect him if he’d only given you the chance to do it._

He drained his cup and refilled it. He turned on the phone screen and entered his password, then turned the screen back off again.

It was just one phone call. He probably wouldn’t even answer--

_\--of course not why would he, he can just dodge it like he’s been dodging everything else--_

\--so it was really just a voicemail. He rehearsed it in his head, tried to make it crisp and professional and detached and unemotional,

_two can play at that game, baby, believe you me_

just communicating the essentials and asking for a call back to schedule something.

No, better ask him to text his availability, not subject himself to the little heart attack of seeing the name on his caller ID, hoping like an idiot it will be something other than what he knows it is.

By 10:00 he had made the call. By 10:30 he was drunk. The night seemed to go on and on and _on_ ; the clock on the microwave eventually gave up, flashing a series of question marks and once, briefly, the word _help_. The lights overhead moved around as they always did, casting their mysterious glow onto the floor.

He stumbled towards the sofa--he still couldn’t sleep in their bed--and curled around a pillow, feeling the room spin. Everything still hurt, but it was simple now, one linear pain without the nuance that sobriety and reason brought.

_Damn you. I miss you. I love you. Fuck you. Come home._


	12. An Ownable Thing

Cecil’s eyes snapped open. For a second he watched the dust float around in the stream of sunlight over the bed. And then his mind cleared and the details of the dream came back to him.

“Oh,” he whispered, “oh _no_.”

It was like being sixteen again. No, much worse; at sixteen the only thing Cecil really knew about sex was that boys were cute and they were the ones he wanted to be doing that with. But now, well, he had a decade of memories for his subconscious to process, two or three nights a week. 

Perhaps some sneaky little part of him was using experiences from the missing decade as well, because the one thing all these dreams had in common was the presence of that excessively attractive scientist.

So every few mornings he’d be pulled out of a dead sleep, roll his eyes at his predicament, and start counting. Or running multiplication tables in his head, or trying to remember all the words to the indoctrination chants of his childhood. Anything benign he could think of to fill his mind with other things until the physical problem went away on its own. It seemed disrespectful, somehow, to deal with the problem head on, as it were. Obviously Carlos would have no way of knowing any of this (... _right_?), and even if he did--if he was somehow the source of these dreams--that would actually be what he wanted, wouldn’t it? He didn’t seem like the type to engage in vengeful astral projection over a little memory loss.

Still, he hardly considered the possibility. The whole thing would just be weird. And what if the Faceless Old Woman was secretly in his room? He felt like she would know what had caused the problem.

But it wasn’t working today, and he woke up later than he'd wanted to and he still had to shower before work.

“ _Go away!_ ” he hissed at his lap. He went through the Cardinal Objects in his head, but gave up when he got to the Cardinal Names because the image was still too _vivid_ and objectively speaking it had been a good one, if only it wasn’t attached to such an inconvenient and embarrassing problem, and apparently he would have no luck today.

He cleared his throat and said, softly, “Um. Faceless Old Woman? If you’re in here, uh, I’d appreciate it if you left. And I’ll leave the flatware drawer the way your organized it, although I can’t vouch for the rest of the family.”

“And I’m not happy about this,” he added under his breath. 

 

He stared at the ceiling, watching clouds of steam drift overhead from his very hot shower, and pondered his problem.

Were these memories he was having? Fantasies? Karmic revenge for having even considered picking up someone else?

He’d considered telling Carlos about them. But there was no easy, graceful way to say it ( _hello forgotten boyfriend, I have vivid dreams about fucking you so hard you can’t remember your name, will that help solve the mystery?_ ), and if it didn’t mean anything at all...it just seemed unfair. Especially given the way he’d left their last meeting: shamelessly escaping his own fears after using someone kind to keep himself safe. 

“Well, Cecil, whatever you did to deserve this,” he whispered to himself, letting the water scald the sensitive skin of his back. “it must have been absolutely terrible.”

He had too many questions, and a completely insufficient number of answers, and a confusing, persistent ache in his chest. Carlos would be better off without him. And maybe he was already moving on, considering that voicemail. Cecil still wasn’t sure what to do about that.

He shook his head and grabbed the bar of soap. He didn’t have time for this now. He had work to drown himself in.

 

_“Uh. Hey. It’s me. Um. Carlos. I saw Old Woman Josie recently and I think we should probably talk about that? Text me and let me know when you're available. Thanks. I--bye.”_

Cecil opened the texting app and stared at the cursor. He felt its flashing was particularly accusatory today. 

**Hi. Sorry it took so long to**

Nope.

**Sorry for the delay in responding. I’ve got tomorrow afternoon if you want to meet up. Or Friday evening. Saturday is pretty clear too actually because no one really wants to interact with me anymore. Memory loss. What a bummer right??**

Better delete that quick before he accidentally sent it.

**Got your message, sorry it took so long to respond, I’m free most of this week. Maybe Friday or Saturday afternoon? Thnx**

That was about as good as he was going to get. He decided to wait on it, though, as the phone apparently sensed his fear and was hiding the send button.

That was as good as he could do for now. Which, of course, left the other message.

He’d gotten it just before the show started and hadn’t really known how to answer it. But the weather could be--well, he probably had time to answer it now. 

**Hey friend! :D I think I might have a little something that will just make your day!**

Whoever Kevin was, he sure liked exclamation points. He thought again of the lessons he’d learned as a child--don’t trust anyone who wants you to keep a secret unless they’re wearing one of three specific uniforms and know your blood type and soul strength. And he remembered how Steve had been wary of even mentioning him.

But he seemed alright to Cecil. A little messy, maybe, and definitely unstable, but who wasn’t? (Cecil wasn’t stable these days, that was for damn sure.) And in some way...it was nice to have a secret again. Everyone seemed to know everything about him--more than he knew about himself. Having something private, to himself, especially something potentially risky, and therefore a secret worth keeping, made him feel oddly calm. In control. It gave him something to hold on to when Abby decided to mother him or his subconscious mind and body banded together against his waking self.

**Hey. What’s the news?**

He looked at the screen, then away. He drummed his fingers on the table. He picked up the phone and turned the screen on--just to check the time--and then shut it off. He looked over his notes, bouncing his foot against the leg of his chair. He realized he hadn’t actually noticed the time when he’d checked the time before, and turned the screen on to check again.

He found a shriveled grape on the corner of his desk and stared at it, trying to remember the last time he had eaten a grape. Then he remembered the ten years that had passed, during which he may have eaten thousands of grapes. 

He threw it out. He rocked absent-mindedly to the weather report. 

When the phone suddenly buzzed, he grabbed it.

**Does Night Vale keep an archive of past radio shows? I sure do hope so! Check the middle of last December. I don’t know if it’s directly relevant to your problem but I bet it’ll interest you! :P**

And then, after a second, 

**Have a great day!**

Well, unless something major had changed in Station Policy--which was not unreasonable over the course of a decade--there should be an archive room. He’d remembered running back and forth, pulling recordings and filing things and crushing tapes of outdated information as an intern. He remembered accidentally being locked in once with two other interns, and although he couldn’t remember what happened, he survived and the nightmares only lasted like a week. Leonard had seemed really proud of him. In fact, that was when he started calling him "Cecil" instead of "the child".

He might have time to have a look now, so--

Cringing and gritting his teeth, he rubbed the temple over the eye that was now squeezed shut against a sharp pain. Thirty seconds. It would have to wait. 

Should he say something? He was usually pretty frank with what he was thinking and feeling, but…

No.

Not this. This would be his, for now.

“Listeners,” he said grimly, when the weather ended, “I have no startling announcements for you. I can’t tell you that anything of consequence has happened during the weather. It’s been an awfully uneventful day, hasn’t it? No facts planted like seeds in the fertile ground of the mind, waiting to unfurl a stem and one brave leaf, reaching to the sun for confirmation before growing into a new theory. No one seems to be dipping their toe into the stream of knowledge, deceptively calm and clear on top, only to be pulled under by the strong current moving unseen beneath the surface. I’m...a little concerned, actually. It’s been a very quiet day. Is there something horrible that’s going to happen?”

He smiled darkly. “ _I bet there is._ ”

 

He leaned back in the chair at Abby’s kitchen table. He rocked forward. He rewound the little tapedeck, carefully avoiding the record button.

_Oh, foolish Cecil!_

He fast-forwarded, and chewed his lower lip. 

_nd I wish you good luck with your prize. On the other, I will be using the mightiest bully pulpit of all, community radio, to strike back at you and destroy you!_

He rewound for just a second. Fearfully, not wanting to hear again, and yet compelled to listen over and over, he stabbed his finger angrily against the play button.

_who won Lot 37 with only one bid!_

_Winner of Lot 37, I wi_

_nner of Lot 37_

He paused the tape player. He pushed away from the table. He picked up his phone, but how could he even respond? _Thanks for letting me know I am literally an ownable thing_?

Finally, typed,

**got time this weekend?**

There was no pretense this time. He stared at the phone in his hands. His heart jumped when it buzzed.

**Yay! Sure thing! Got a half day on Saturday, look forward to seeing you. Until then, Cecil!**

He sat for a long time at the table, periodically listening again to a self both younger and older describe the circumstances under which his autonomy passed from one person to another, not knowing either party involved or their plans. He got a glass and filled it with some of the lukewarm gin hidden in the spare room. 

After a while, the door opened, and he heard keys thrown on the counter. He did not turn.

He pushed play. 

“Abby.” He flicked his nail against the glass nervously. “When were you going to tell me about this?”


End file.
